Tim Learn's Blog, page 4

End of Month: December 2017

December 2017

We’re in the final stretch.

Books Read

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First, I finished Middlemarch. It was daunting only because it reads like Jane Austen, so if you’re her fan, you’ll love it. I, on the other hand, am not a fan. I struggled through any of her books, so this one too was a bit much. My mind wandered constantly as it detailed social rules and told intricate ways for paragraphs upon paragraphs on how people work. Not my thing. All in all, I’m happy I read such a prestigious book, but like even many critics have said, it was a bit windy.

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Then, as if Middlemarch wasn’t enough, I decided to torture myself with Atlas Shrugged. Now, I already am not an Ayn Rand fan. I find her ego abdominal, second only to Trump. And despite somewhat liking Fountainhead, I found that Ayn decided to take all the bad parts of her first tome and triple them for her second one. The speeches are ungodly long—one last for somewhere around 60 pages. The thing is, most of her speeches are just repeating what the characters have been thinking aloud in their heads the whole time, so we get bashed over and over with the same drivel. Obviously, I could say much more, and I hope to one day in a formal post, but for now, I think that’s all you need. Read it, but be cautious. My brain still hurts

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 0 more this month. Total: 82 agents

Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: Done

Atlas Shrugged: Done

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: pushing beyond 90,000 words.

Next Month’s Agenda

The year is done. As for next month, I hope to put a huge dent into my new reading goals, and finish my story.

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End of the Month: November

November 2017

Another month down, and it didn’t go quite as I had planned, but…we’ll see.

Books Read

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First, I zipped through another quick library read. Usually English books—especially contemporary and current ones—are hard to find here in Korea, but I saw this on the shelf and picked it up. It was all over the blogosphere, so I was hoping for something good. In that way, I’d have to say I was disappointed. As for its niche of YA, it fit perfectly. I read the whole book in half a day, so by no means was it daunting. However, the story was lacking and a bit predictable. Everything else was quite nice, though, sadly. I wished the writing hadn’t been wasted on such a banal story.

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Then, in what took me an immensely long time, I completed Rushdie’s Midnight Children. It’s a difficult book to pin down. While I liked a lot of it-especially all the strange powers and his uncanny skill at writing dense sentences that were still mesmerizing and not clunky at all—I found, overall, the story to be too lengthy and rambling. I did enjoy the history I picked up along the way and a lot of the uniqueness. Definitely not an easy read, but it got me wondering what else he has to offer.

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To follow that up, I wanted something light, so I dove into Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. It details apartheid South Africa, giving wonderful insights into living in such a strangely constructed world. The whole time I found it amazing how this kid was able to get out alive and become the host of TDS. Though some reviews were hoping for him to depict his rise more, I found this to be exactly what I needed to understand him more. The end was especially powerful, and I can’t recommend this book enough.

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From such light-hearted fare, I jumped into Wide Sargasso Sea. I already knew the premise of the story going in, and having read and reread Jane Eyre a couple of times, I was fully prepared for all the overlaps. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much. Only at the end did any true allusions to the great novel it comes from come up. That said, I did find the story slow and weighty. For such a short book, I had to push to get through. Nonetheless, I see what the author was striving for, but I don’t feel it deserves all the hype it got / gets.

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To give myself something completely different, I read In the Miso Soup. Holy Crap! It was different. It’s about sex and murder in Japan, and the narrator’s voice is so spot on and chilling, you get dragged into it instantly. Althought I felt reserved and hesitant to trust any of the writing at first, I was a convert and a true Ryu Murakami fan by the end. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it’s like the Fight Club for the Japanese 90’s. If you like horror and political commentary, this is right up your alley.

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Finally, I got to my book club read for the month: Soonish. I helped pick this one with high hopes that it would be in the vein of Rational Optimist. And although certain areas delivered on this premise, I was overall underwhelmed. Firstly, a lot of the tech they discuss is not the revolutionary and seem to be too far off in the future to be viable. The ones that do seem to be preeminent are not as fascinating as I would have hoped, though the moral questions they raise were particularly grabbing. On top of this, I found all of it to be a bit longer than needed. Read it if you have no knowledge of any of future tech. Sadly, if you’ve read any Michael Crichton, I’d say skip this book.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 0 more this month. Total: 82 agents
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: 800 pages. In the home stretch.

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: pushing beyond 90,000 words.

Next Month’s Agenda

I one hundred percent want to finish sending out queries for Crasher and complete Brief Lives. The sole reason for this is that I want to start a re-write of Turtle Boy. Now that my writing has improved, I want to update one of my first books and try sending it out. Besides that, I’ll be finishing my goodreads challenge soon and hope to get ready for a repeat next year.

October Review

October 2017

With a trip abroad, I got more Japanese books and started on some rewrites for Brief Lives that will probably push it into an even bigger book. My mind is swirling and cranking things out. So here goes.

Books Read

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First off, I got through Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Despite the upcoming movie, I wanted to see more of the famed mystery could do. Overall, with And Then There Were None, I’m not sure I entirely enjoy her style. The whole thing revolves around how smart the main character is and really there’s little plot, just who did it. Not that impressed. Beyond that, I don’t know how you can make a movie out of it, or at least an entertaining one.

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Then I got through Story Genius. I’ve been trying to read at least one book a month to improve writing. This months, like many others, falls short of great. It pretty much follows the format and style of writing one particular author found helpful, and although this may help newbies, I got very little from it besides boredom.

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Fortunately, after two lackluster reads, I jumped into Naoko. From the get-go, this book is awesome. It’s about a mother and daughter who get into a train crash and upon rescue, we find the mom dead, but her spirit has taken over the daughter’s body. Returning to her normal life, she and her husband, the main character, try to figure out a way to live. Not only is it fun, the ending blows you away. Definitely a must read.

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With the high, I dove into another YA title: Waking Time. The premise seemed to possibly grab my interest—taking place on the UW Madison campus where I went to school. Unfortunately, beyond that, there was little here driving this thing forward beyond slight pokes at time and the stodgy writing and plotting you’d expect of a sixth grader. This one deserves a pass.

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I followed it up with We Should All Be Feminists. I have her Americanah on my TBR list, and chose this first. It’s short and is actually based off a speech—something I only found out after reading it. Despite it’s origin, I liked it. Everything she says hits the topic spot on and makes entire sense no mater what country you are in. This seems particularly pertinent now with the Weinstien and other allegations going on.

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For my book club this month, we read Perfume. I’ve wanted to read this for ages, but never got around to it—although I have to admit, I saw the movie first and found it weak and without focus. Regardless, my wife loved it and found it creepy, so I gave it a try. Though I loved much of the beginning and the ironic ways all of the main characters encounters died, the last half of the book felt off and missing something. Above all, it was a quick read, so not all that bad.

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Then on my wife’s prodding, I read A Man Called Ove. It was as expected—moving, heart-touching, entertaining, but mawkish and too anecdotal at the same time. I did like the main character being a curmudgeon. His grumpiness mirrored my emotions on many things, despite him having decades on me. I did notice in one review how they abhorred the treatment of fat people in the book, which I didn’t really see. If anything, it felt like some were being to sensitive, but then again…

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Finally, I found my next book at the library and had to read it. The Hate U Give. This book is lighting up the awards list this year and is already rumored to be in production for a movie. The beginning is bumpy until you get submersed into the plot, which doesn’t kick in until the police shoot the protagonist’s friend for pretty much being black. Otherwise, it is steeped in black culture and references, which may be good for an outsider, like some of my students, but the fact that so much of it is laid in there, at times, it comes off heavy-handed. Another thing I noticed was that it is an impossible book to disagree with. Every negative review got slammed by angry hate-mongers, who for some reason don’t like hate-mongers. Ironical.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 0 more this month. Total: 82 agents
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: 540 pages.

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: pushing beyohnd 83,000 words.

Next Month’s Agenda

With my hard work this month, my goodread’s goal is nearly finished, so I might slow down on the reading. Still, I got a lot to go and get read, so maybe not as well. I hope to complete Brief Lives fully and start work on submission work for it, as well as tackle finishing up querying for Crasher.

End of September

September 2017

This month is getting back to normal, though my writing has stalled for obvious reasons—a new semester. On top of this, I didn’t really send my new novel out to as many agents as I would have liked, but I did get valuable feedback on my query letter from a real agent.

Books Read

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First off, I wanted to get into a little writing again, so I whizzed through ‘Save the Cat.’ Now, essentially, this is a book for script writing, but the basic does apply to all stories. The one drawback or disclaimer, rather, would be the fact that the guy had few good credits to his movie scripts made—Blank Check, and Don’t Move or My Mom Will Shoot. Still, most of it was on point and good guidance.

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Second, I found a cheap version of Treasure Island and thought it wouldn’t be bad to see what this classic had to offer. However, sometimes that thinking is wrong. I had an unbelievably hard time getting through this book. For one, the writing was dense and not very direct. Secondly, it all seemed so ‘done before’ and maybe only because it was the book that had started all of it in the first place. Maybe if I had read when I was younger, then I would’ve enjoyed it more, but as is, I couldn’t wait to finish.

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To bid my time while reading the above, I jumped into Moonwalking with Einstein. This book was exactly what I was looking for, especially when it came to non-fiction. So many writers nowadays have latched onto Malcolm Gladwell’s way of presenting non-fiction, that few actually know how to do it well. Here, with Foer—the author—he knows what he’s doing, and he should. He’s the younger brother of Jonathon Safran Foer. Overall, good read.

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After that, I wanted to see how the professionals did it and read Patterson’s Pop goes the Weasel. This guy is supposed to be a pro and all, but—wow!—what nonsense. The book was a whopping 450 pages, but barely any of it played well or piqued my interest. Furthermore, the main character, Alex Cross, came across as unbelievable and annoying. I wasn’t sure what aspect of the book was supposed to be good because all of it sucked. The only good thing was that it was written at such a low level of ability that it took me three days to read. Seriously, this is not even brain candy. It’s like brain mush because you don’t need many brain cells at all to get through it.

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Then, almost as if I were jumping from one pole to the opposite, I read Train Dreams. Here—thought a short book at 114 pages—this guy had mounds of things to wade through. I took me two days to read, and over two weeks to mull and tweeze out all the details. It’s a puzzle of a book that is so cleverly hidden and wrapped in a setting of slow industrialization that most I would have to believe miss the best parts. Wonderful book.

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Lastly, I read Appointment in Samarra. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while, and although not whole-heartedly impressed by it, I did enjoy the straightforward narrative. It felt in vein with Rich Man, Poor Man—just plain, old good story. Ultimately, the story ended sharply—which I’m still not sure why the author did so—but I walked away feeling pleasant enough.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 0 this month. Total: 82 agents
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: 300 pages.

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: finishes at 83,000 words.

Next Month’s Agenda

I hope to go through Brief Lives for editing and possibly send Crasher out to more publishers. I’m still trudging along with Middlemarch, and clearly plan to hit my goal of 75 books for the year. With a trip to Japan, some of this might suffer. We’ll see.

End of August

August 2017

Another abysmal month for reading, but okay for writing.

Books Read

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I started out with a reread for a student. I actually began this book in June but it took until now to finish it with her. Freakonomics. I’ve read all the other accompanying books as well, and it has been a while since I originally read it, so it was a surprised to see what I remembered and what I didn’t. The strange thing was I found I didn’t enjoy it as much this time around as I first did. I think mainly that’s because both authors’ writing has improved over their career. This book felt flat and without purpose. Still it was good.

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Next, I took a quick fun romp with Through the Woods. I’ve heard about this book a lot and so when I saw it in the bookstore, I picked it up. The artwork is nice and fitting for the atmosphere of the book, resembling of something out of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. The stories—five of them—too were creepy and compelling with just enough to make you whiz through them. I only wished some were developed more into longer, full-book ideas.

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Then I read Ishmael. I’ve heard about this book for ages, and to be honest, looked down upon it for the silly ideas people spewed about it. But finding it in a used bookstore for cheap, I tried the first chapter and found the writing style to be eloquent and fun. However, this was misleading. Though an easy read, my first presumptions were correct. A lot of it deals with rewriting history and the way we see our world. Nothing wrong with that, but the way it’s present is insulting and in the end no very realistic. Overall, it’s a spiritual book much like The Celestine Prophecy that tries to hoodwink you with a gimmicky presence.

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For my book club this month, we had to read Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. He is clearly very poetic and well educated. The vocabulary on the guy is astounding, having pinned down many French-based words and dropping them into his sentences with ease. He describes and shows off his knowledge of the desert amazingly, as well as his hatred for developing park and the wilderness for the masses. I agreed with a lot of it, including the slight areas that delved into mysticism, but overall I felt his anti-technology wavering to be a bit much.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 10 more this month. Total: 82 agents
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: 60 pages.

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: a current total of 75,000 words, which makes this month’s addition a meager 20,000 words. I hope to finish next month.

Next Month’s Agenda

My goals are to finish Brief Lives, start my mass reading again, and keep chugging away at the agents. I had one interested in Crasher, asking for a full. This was my first time ever having that happen, so it was envigorating, though he ultimately turned it down. I hope that shows good things coming.

End of July

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July 2017

A bit of a drop with the reading, but a lot done in other areas, along with some setbacks.

Books Read

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Right away, I jumped into Gaimen’s Anansi Boys. The title is reminiscent of Brothers Karamazov, and though it is an off chute of Gaimen’s American Gods, in no way is it as good. For me, Gaimen’s always been this way. I’ll love one of his books and hate the next. With this one, I think it sprouts from the predictability and the overall British humor throughout. From other reviews, some went nuts, claiming it’s his best. But I don’t see it.

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Then, for my book club, I read Straight Man. This author is much more famous for his book Empire Falls, which I might check out based on this first venture into his writing. His characters are detailed and often humorous, though I’m not sure what the overall theme or meaning of the book actually was. Despite that, I thought his writing was entertaining enough, but be forewarned; the story takes time to build as there is a huge cast of characters. I’d say it wasn’t until about 35% in when the action grabbed me. Otherwise, it finished fast.

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After that I read The Imperfectionists. I’d heard of this book before and how the author, and ex-newspaper man, quit his job, camped out in Paris, and supposed wrote this amazing book. Knowing this backstory, I can see where he got a lot of his details, as the book takes place at a failing newspaper in Europe, but besides that I have little good things to say. Despite liking his style and his ability to make you like each character, as the novel is cut into vignettes, I didn’t see the overall connection between all of them, and many times the chapters ended with little or no resolve.

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And then a setback struck. My back tightened up and I was laid up in immense pain, unable to move for roughly a week. However, the doctor, this time, unlike the other times, dropped a little phrase on me—‘Black Disc.’ This is supposed the name of my condition. With this in hand, I scowered the internet for books on this disease and found this wonderfully helpful book, The Great Escape: How I beat Degenerative Disc Disease. It is a great, succinct resource.

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So with my time drained from one setback, I actually encountered another—Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles. I’ve read his books before but not his seminal work he’s most known for. I picked up a used copy, excited for what it might entail and…hit a complete brick wall. Going into it, I knew his prose was dense and difficult at times, but the beginning of this book dragged and petered out on me within the first 100 pages. I had to force fed the next 100 pages just to get the ball rolling again. By the end, I’d have to say I see the purpose and the hype of the book. I was frustrated at the double standards for women in it, which only makes you think of the standards now. However, I would’ve been just as happy if he had made it a little bit more accessible earlier on.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—sent to: 72 agents
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Middlemarch: not started

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225—done!
New Book: Brief Lives: a current total of 55,000 words, which makes this months addition a whopping 40,000 words. My best number yet.

Next Month’s Agenda

Clearly, my mind is in writing mood. Because of this my reading schedule has been shifted slightly, though my numbers are already well above last years. With this in mind, I will most likely complete Brief Lives next month, jump into an edit, and hopeful have a physical copy for another round of editing by the following month. Then I’ll be back into my TBR and looking to finish strong for the end of the year.

End of the Month Review: June

 

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June 2017

I don’t know how I did it. I know this is test month, but still I got a lot done.

Books Read

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First, I got through a little writing book called The Story Grid. From time to time, I think it’s helpful to jump into this kind of writing to see how others do it or what they think about it. Fresh perspective, I guess. As for this one, it wasn’t totally useless. I liked a lot how he asked for the values of scenes and guided you somewhat into chopping your story apart to see it better. However, there was way too much build-up with not as much pay-off as I’d have liked.

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Then I tackled Ship of Fools by Kat Ann Porter. This book has sat on my shelf forever, and I finally got around to it. For one, it’s big with small print—just the book I usually like. In this way, it reminded me of The Recognitions, but where that book blew me away with its common thread and themes, this one seemed lacking. If anything, like most things I read today, it brought up feelings of the current state of America. Supposedly this book made her reputation, but I don’t see it.

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Next, I struggled through Naked Statistics. This was a read for one of my students. I wanted to see if it would fit well with her aspirations, and as the excerpts and blurbs claimed it super easy to digest, I thought it would be a good fit. I was wrong. So much of it is bogged down with either heavy math language or nonsensical examples that don’t really stick out. Unlike Freakonomics, this one was not that outstanding.

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After that, I got around to Human Acts by Han Kang. I already read her phenomenal Vegetarian, and I picked up this one for my book club, even though I wasn’t able to make it to the meeting. The book recalls the events of the Gwang Ju Uprising and the eventual slaughter of many of the city’s people by their dictator of a president, who ironically is still alive and rich despite all the hatred for him. It was amazing, but all readers should be forewarned that it is artistic, so be ready to use your brain.

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Strangely enough, I thought I read an arty book so lets try YA! Wrong. I read Marie Lu’s Legend. I saw hype for it everywhere and—wow!—this is the most basic of books. You could see every plot twist coming pages ahead of it, and the writing rang like something a high school student would do. Everything was off in this book including the ridiculous names of the characters and the insta-love. Way to go YA! Another one on the pile.

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From here I needed a brain boost, so I dove into Being There. This very short book came with a lot of thinking. The main character, Chance, gets kicked out of his house but with strange luck always turns out well. The way everyone spins what this gardener says reminds me so much of Trump and the current American regime. It is eerie as it is truthful.

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Then I read The Real Dope by Ring Lardner. I think I misjudged this one, too. Many famous writers in the past loved this guy, including Hemingway and Salinger, so I thought I’d give him a try. Unfortunately, his most well known book is You Know Me Al, not this one, though the MC is the same. However, this one—about WWII—didn’t go as well as maybe the original. In fact, it was rather trying. I suggest all to avoid it.

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From there, I went more YA with The Walls Around Us. This book sucked. It was nothing more than fancy flowery language parading as a real story. I don’t know what the author has written before, but from all the writing books I’ve read and the classes I’ve taken, I know you shouldn’t have chapters based on one scene or description and that’s it. Nothing happens until the end when you find out why all if it occurred and even then, I knew what was coming. Don’t even try this book!

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Luckily again, I dove into my next read, Flowers for Algernon. I read it practically in a day, but unlike the simplicity that makes YA books fast reads, that’s not why I burned through this one. Charlie, the MC, is amazingly portrayed with great complexity. The only caveat for any future reader would be to be aware of the heavy psychological undertones. The author was a psychologist somewhere in his past; nonetheless, it was a great read and very creative.

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Having not learned, I jumped into another YA, Every Day. Many loved and hated this, but surprisingly, I actually quite enjoyed it. True, there was insta-love, but he gets it out of the way quickly to have a plot. Then he was rather creative with all the different forms his story took. The only detractor would be the sudden and inexplicable ending. One thing I don’t like is an end for no reason.

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Yes, yes, now I”ve made it to the end. I finished the month off with No Country for Old Men. This is my second McCarthy book this year, and I’d have to say it’s better than The Road. Where The Road felt like a zombie movie without zombies, this book was definitely disturbing and interesting. On top of that, he has an amazing way of portraying his characters with dialogue even if the rest seems like everyday movement and action. Overall, good.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done—now I’m prepping to send it to agents next month.
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Not Started

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 225. I finished all I can do for this book. From the consensus of many agents, it was interesting but not enough to get attention. In other words, a good third or fourth book, not a first one.
New Book: Brief Lives: got 16,000 words done so far.

Next Month’s Agenda

For next month, I want to send out Crasher. Also, I want to throw down a lot on the new book. I hope to be productive with all the free time in summer.

May Review

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May 2017

With many holidays and some time off, I was able to get a lot of reading done. Here goes.

Books Read

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First came The 13-Story Treehouse. I’ve heard a lot about it going around and thought it might be good for some of my students, particularly the male ones. All in all, I didn’t care for it. Where Wimpy Kid is inventive and funny, driven by the strong characters, this book is very loosely tied together with little strong plotting or jokes. Though it may be an easy read for those that hate reading—it took me two hours to finish—I don’t know why it’s so resoundingly popular.

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Then I tackled Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual. Just like the book before—A Void—he set parameters on himself to make it harder. He made a map of the whole apartment and set out telling the story room by room following the knight in chess’s pattern. Beyond that, it mainly followed the main character’s drive to paint pictures, have them cut into puzzles, assemble the puzzles, glue them back together, and then wash the paint free from the canvas as a clean sheet of paper. He wanted to something useless with his life and as you hear the other stories, you see most people do that to. I was awesome, if not long. Must read!

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After such a heavy book, I dropped into Anna and the French Kiss. It stared out like all romance YA books—weak characters, insta-love, piss poor dialogue—but eventually moved onto something more. One big thing I hated was that the MC was not as likeable as you’d expect, and she didn’t really know that much about movies, though she claimed to be a cinephile. In the end, I thought it captured the uncertainty young love has, but added far too many twists and turns to make it a reread.

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Then hearing much hype about it, I read Ness’ The Rest of Us Just Live Here. The concept was interesting—mocking all the werewolf / vampire YA books where chosen ones must save the world. The main characters are the normal kids who have to deal with all the repercussions of those other genre books destroying everything. And even though it basically revolved around it, some of the plot was ok. Still, in the end, I didn’t care for the full effect of it. Again, Ness by himself disappoints.

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Then I needed a pick-me-up, so I read Higashino’s Journey under the Midnight Sun. Like his other ones, this was a murder mystery, but of a whole new order. This did not follow his normal prescribed method, and I loved it. The two main characters are never seen directly, only being dealt with by side characters, but he does such an amazing job with interesting side stories, that you grasp the danger of these two. Although I hoped for more in the ending, the whole book was an awesome ride.

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And with that, I finally finished my Jane Erye reread with my student. She was quite busy and had to prepare for tests, but I got it done this month. I still remembered the basic structure of the story and a lot of what my professor had elucidated about the text, but I’d have to say I’m still left with a bitter taste in my mouth. The whole third act with the priest was utterly useless and boring. The main story took place beforehand and now we’re just waiting. If it had been chopped a little shorter, I’d have been happier—the same thoughts as I had years ago.

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With my other student I tackled Kress’ Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, a story writing book. It had good instruction for beginners of the craft, but I’d have to say for lower students, it wasn’t that superb. I really wish there was a book for young kids that explained well the process of writing books and stories.

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Finally, I got to Rebecca. This is a tough one to judge. First off, the story is slow and super detailed in that old English-assignment-like way. It’s not until halfway through that the story actually starts up and gets good. For this reason, I do think fondly of it, but it was far too layered with little action or excitement in the beginning.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done
Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 175. I did about 20 or so more. I’m not counting anymore, but I’ve sent some letters out.
New Book: got an idea, now I need to start writing.

Next Month’s Agenda

As I expressed above, I have a new idea, so I hope to tackle it this month. Hopefully, I can get an outline to fast-track the writing.

April Review

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Aprill 2017

Tough month with reading, but I just barely got it in under the wire.

Books Read

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First read this month: Jo Nesbo’s Snowman. This book comes with a lot of acclaim; many saying it resembles the Millennium Trilogy. However, I disagree. Though it had all the elements of a good crime story—misdirection, a hardened protagonist, an unusual killer—all the parts fit too perfectly for me. It went along exactly as you would expect, with bumps along the way. Ultimately, I don’t think I’ll read this author again, especially if this is his keystone piece of work.

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Next came A Study in Charlotte. It is hard to describe this without falling into the normal irksome rebuttals and/or complaints I have for YA. First of all, the main character—Charlotte, a Holmes rip-off—isn’t very likeable or interesting. She’s just a jerk all the time. Secondly, her sidekick, the narrator, is annoying in his incessant commentary that moves nothing along and is quite obviously there just to throw us off the path of the true culprit, which isn’t even very imaginative when we do finally find out who’s behind it all. The only original idea was to make Sherlock a girl. The rest was drivel. Clearly, I hated it.

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My next book was a biggie: Here I Am. Wow! A monster of a book, not only in size but proportion of where the plot skews. It goes everywhere. I don’t know what it is, but I like a good Jewish book by a Jewish writer every so often. They have such a unique outlook and flavor that is unbelievably different from other writers. In that way, the characters are ridiculous funny and reverential. If anything must be noted, that would be that the story doesn’t quite clench onto a specific idea. It seems to maybe need a little more editing in that way.

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Then there’s my reread with students: Neon Bible. I read this first almost 15 years ago and remember the gist of it. Despite all that time, I still see the draw of the story, but I obviously forgot how simplistic it was, especially the writing style. For that reason, in certain parts, it was dry, but even at 16, Toole had enough knowledge to jump back into interesting parts when it lagged for too long. Still good in my book.

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This month I joined a book club as well, and had to read The Sellout. I’ve never read this author’s works before, but found this one awesome. He has a very overly elaborate style which I noticed, reading some reviews, turned people off, but having read DFW’s Infinite Jest, back-breaking sentences overloaded with detail comes as no problem to me. On top of that, his humor was very identical to mine, list the unusual combination of similarities—or differences—things have. In the end, a work of genius and fun, even if the ending isn’t absolutely straightforward.

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Lastly, I read the second volume of Amulet. Like the first one, I was underimpressed. The plot is exactly what you expect with each character spewing out lines that sound straight from an action movie. It’s trite and hackneyed in all the worst ways, but all of my students seem to love it, so despite YA follow the same trope, this one at least makes sense. The comic is aimed for kids. In that case, YA—what’s your deal?

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: Done
Read Life: A Manual: 250 pages

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 151. Still zero more this month, but I got a whole lot of rejections. Yeah!

Next Month’s Agenda

I finished Crasher this month and hope to get to some major editing next month. Otherwise, I’m plugging away at my reading. So far, so good.

 

End of March 2017 Review

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March 2017

With the beginning of the semester, I’ve been a bit bogged down, but here’s what I’ve been able to accomplish.

Books Read

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The first book down is the graphic novel, Awkward. It has wonderful drawings, almost resembling at times to anime or cartoons, but with a particularly endearing style for its topic. Overall, the story’s a bit weak and, like most graphic novel fare nowadays, is autobiographical. Hopefully, some tales not based on the author’s life will sprout out soon.

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Next came Bone Gap. I’ve seen everywhere praise for this book, and while it didn’t suck it up like so much other YA fodder, there was still this distinct unsavory taste to it. What?—I don’t know. But I can say I was not too impressed or overwhelmed by the protagonists, and even though the big twist at the end did catch me off guard and made it more fun, it took so long for anything to happen in this near-plotless book, that I’m not one hundred percent sure if it was worth the read. Props though for the Orpheus-like retelling.

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After that, I finally tackled ‘The Danish Way of Parenting.’ Obviously, non-fiction. It had a lot of good points and showed quite possibly how the thinking another culture has can influenced positively their children, but unlike other books in this genre, it didn’t have the zing or the writing appeal that its brethren tend to have. Above all, it got me thinking about how America is and whether our thinking and behavior is just merely passed down from generation to generation—almost genetically—and whether or not it explains the current state of America not being great; ie. Trump.

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From there, I went into ‘The Heart of Darkness.’ After reading it, I perused the comments section for it on many sites, and I can see why it’s meet with so much ire. The language is horribly difficult, and there appears to be very little plot. Frankly, it just goes over and over with metaphors describing the situation that Mallory is in. However, I didn’t feel it was all that bad. Truthfully, it’s nothing more than a hard to read YA novel. No plot—check! Very little useful dialogue—check! Rerunning the same tired metaphor—check! The only thing it does have going for it is…depth, which is what kind of makes it literature.

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Then came ‘The Road.’ In the beginning, I found it dry, but easy to push on as it was simply written and fast. I understand every single hateful word certain reviewers have for this book where nothing much happens. At the same time, his style builds and creates a wonderful image and world. In a way, it felt like a novelized episode of The Walking Dead. Truth be told, I don’t know why it won a Pulitzer, but—oh well!

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Lastly, I’ve struggle over the last month and a half with ‘The Fountainhead.” It was difficult to get into, but by about page 200 or this 727 page behemoth, things got going, and I finished up the last ¾ of the book in two weeks. That said, her writing is not always eloquent or efficient with her use of descriptions or words. The book could’ve been chopped down, especially near the end where classic Ayn Rand heavyhandiness started slapping each page with 3 to 4 page harangues or her particularly hypocritical philosophy. Many republicans adore her, and I can see why. She writes with conviction but no concept of reality or responsibility to fact or morals. Though the story at times was fun, my repugnance for her is only further fueled by this misled book.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: I’m at 80,000 words now. Nearing the end
Read Life: A Manual: 0 pages

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: 0 pages

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: 151. I have not budged here a bit, though I have a slew more to send it off to. Oh, and by the way, no takers yet. Insert sad-faced emoticon if I used them or knew how.

Next Month’s Agenda

Again—finish Crasher. Then—start my newest writing project, one with a student. On top of that, I want to tackle one more of the big books on my slowly growing TBR.