Week 17 Check In

[Stephanie]

Sherri--I hope you don't mind me leading the charge this week. I set aside a bit of time on Friday mornings to make my post for the week, and I enjoyed the thread so much last week that I want to make sure I'm in on it this week! I hope all is well with you.

Sooo, last week I read Shadow of a Century: An Irish Love Story as my book with a subtitle, and it was straight up horrible. I really must figure out how to walk away from a book that I'm not enjoying, but I'm a completionist and unfinished books haunt me. Any advice on this would be appreciated!

(Note for this paragraph: TL: DR: don't read this trainwreck of a book, haha.) I would put the writing level in terms of research, wordsmithing, and editing at about the same level as the 50 Shades of Grey books--possibly worse. In other words, it felt like someone just vomited out the words without really understanding anything about the craft of writing, only without any of the titillating bits that made reading 50 Shades at least mildly entertaining (for me, at least) and source material for broader discussions about writing from a feminist perspective and user-generated fiction. Say what you want about the 50 Shades of Grey books, but they are excellent fodder for starting discussions around sex, consent, relationship dynamics, new ways of creating and publishing work, etc. Some strong and polarizing words coming up here: I work in the arts. I fully support the creative process and believe that we need to engage in artistic endeavours in order to gain profound insights into ourselves, the society around us, and how we conceive of what it is to be human as well as the relationship of that humanity (in all its rich diversity) to the world around us, past and present. I also believe in the democratizing potential of the internet, particularly those platforms that support learning and creative action through user-generated content and social networks. What I don't believe in, however, is how a book can be as badly written as this one and still have mostly 4 and 5 starts on Good Reads! I mean, taste is subjective, you'll get no arguments from me there, and each genre has it's own criteria for determining what is a "good" creative work and I believe we shouldn't try to judge genres we know nothing about by the standards of genres we do know about. However, there are a few--I hesitate to say "universal, so lets go with "recommended"--traits that span most genres (at least in western literature, I can't speak to other cultures that I don't know about!), such as creating a logical and coherent storyline, consistent characterization and character action that reflects that characterization, accurately depicting historical events if writing a historical novel, consistently using the same spelling throughout the book...none of which this novel had. True, authors sometimes purposefully break these rules, but they know they're breaking them and they do it intentionally (this author did not) as part of the purposeful construction of the book, like in The Catcher in the Rye or Midnight's Children, or, if I'm going with a book set in the same era as Shadow of A Century, A Star Called Henry, which has a horribly unreliable, erratic narrator/protagonist who confuses important dates and times throughout the book, and this is important to the storyline.

Okay, that's enough time spent on this book. Sorry about the diatribe, it just really upset me. Clearly I need to let it go (and now I've got Frozen in my head...)

As I literally needed a unicorn chaser after Shadow of a Century, I've started reading The Last Unicorn as my book with a mythical creature. I loved this movie as a kid, and ever since I started reading it, I keep singing, "I'm aliiiiiiiiive...I'm aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiive" (I dare you to listen to it and not sing it, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8ClxCGA1SI ). I'm totally watching the movie again this weekend :-) I've never actually read this book before, and it's turning out to be wonderfully nostalgic because it follows the movie quite closely and is beautifully written in a tone that's part trippy 1960s fantasy (i.e., White Rabbit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0)and part high fantasy prose. It's a quick read and has some wonderful themes around mortality, magic, faith, and love. This is definitely the "feel good" read that I needed!

So, what is everyone else reading?

[Sheri]

Haha, I'd started my post but had to go for a meeting. Didn't see you'd posted. I deleted it, and I'll re-add it here.

Hey everyone!

Forgot to post my update yesterday, sorry about that!

So glad it's finally getting springlike here in Michigan, it's super nice out.

This was a pretty good reading week for me.

I finished:
Injection, Vol. 2 which was really good. Computer virus that is infecting the real world. Great story and writing. Doesn't count for the challenge, but i need to break things up sometimes.

Welcome to Night Vale this is my book with multiple authors. I hadn't listened to any of the podcasts prior to reading this, but I didn't feel like it mattered much. I figured everything out well enough. I did go and listen to the first five or so, will probably poke at it here and there. Reminds me of a bit lighter-hearted Nightside.


Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail - Book set in the wilderness. I had mixed feelings. It was an interesting read, and fast. But I couldn't help but think the lady is an idiot, and that she used up ever bit of luck in her entire life in not dying or being seriously injured along her journey. I mean more power to people who are into the whole multi-month hiking thing, but I'd like to think real hikers do things like train, and prepare, and make sure they can actually carry their packs etc. Check weather conditions of the trail you're hiking. Basic common sense safety things, you know?

Nimona - Book on my TBR list for far too long. I bought the digital version of this on sale ages ago and kept forgetting to read it. Partly because most my graphic novels I get from humble bundles or comixology, so use Comic Zeal or Comixology app to read. This one I bought from amazon directly and it got sent to my ipad kindle app. Just kept forgetting it was there. I saw someone else on goodreads reading it and remembered "oh yeah! i have that!" It's really good. I find it fun when you get protagonists that are nominally the villains.

The Wee Free Men book recommended by an author you love. I wasn't entirely sure how to go about this prompt. I checked Mercedes Lackey's site and social stuff, I didn't see a handy link of "books I recommend". And it's not like I am personal friends of my beloved authors to ask them for recommendations. So finally I recalled that Patrick Rothfuss is really active on goodreads. I'd read a lot of the stuff he had reviewed recently, but he has a shelf called "books I'd blurb" that are all things he rated 5 stars. I figured if he'd blurb them, and he gave them 5 stars, that counts as a recommendation. I picked this one because I hadn't read it, but I own it. I read some Pratchett when I was younger, but then it just got expensive trying to keep up with his massive catalogue so kind of stopped. Now with digital stuff being cheaper/available through library, it's easier to try to catch up on ground. Also, now Tiffany Aching is my favorite Pratchett character.

Tuesdays at the Castle - book with a day of the week or month in the title. This was a fun little read, maybe a bit young. I'd say it was more aimed for middle schoolers than YA. I enjoyed it though. I'd probably finish the series if I found them available. I liked Princess Cellie, even if I'm dubious as to her acting anything remotely like an eleven year old.

Currently reading: The Dragon and the Unicorn which will be my book involving a mythological creature. I picked up the unicorn humble bundle going on right now, so this was a pretty easy prompt to fill. Kind of frustrated with this kindle edition though. I'm almost wondering if i should delete it and try to re-ad it. The title's just a string of numbers and the formatting is totally off. Random page breaks mid sentence and the chapters aren't being properly delineated. It just makes it hard to follow, the text isn't flowing in a logical faction. Extra annoying because I'm pretty sure I owned this book at some point, but I couldn't find it on my bookshelf. Oh well. The story is interesting so far, enough that I'm going to stick it out.

This puts me at 37/52 for popsugar. I think I decided to just focus on popsugar now, and I'll finish bookriot after, unless something can double-dip.

How's everyone else doing?

[Sheri]

Also to go back to what you said, Stephanie, I mostly agree with you. I found 50 Shades horrible. I don't disagree though, that at the very least it can open some conversational topics. However I could give some suggestions of better literature involving bdsm and such, that have a healthier relationship dynamic.

I've been trying to write a book in some form or another for most of my life. Currently I managed to finally get one to the point where I'm letting some people read it. So even if a book is terrible, I admire someone for managing to put it on paper. Just I think more people need to understand that the reason editing is a profession is because a lot of people don't have the knowledge/perspective to do it themselves. Once I get some feedback from my readers, I'm going to go back and patch up what I can, and then I intend to turn it over to an editor to be like "help me make this into something people will read".

[Stephanie]

Hi Sherri! I'm so glad you posted :-)

I agree with you about the value of the creative endeavour, and I think that everyone should find ways to engage in being creative. What you describe in your own work is amazing! My bigger gripe is with individuals who don't view writing as a skill that needs to be developed and perceive the ability to write well as a gift and not the result of hard work, including getting feedback and being open to revision, which appears to be the case with the book I read, and we know from interviews is the case with 50 Shades (also, I 100% agree with you that there are better books to use to talk about certain themes, but I give 50 Shades credit for jump starting a lot of discussion that would have otherwise not happened :-)). Putting your creative work out there is HARD! I admire anyone who does it, and I want to support them in anyway that I can--I did that for years as a music and English teacher, and I still do it in my current role. What I find challenging (particularly given my line of work) is when individuals don't engage in creation in a reflective and thoughtful manner (not surprisingly, I have a hard time watching American Idol auditions, mostly because I always feel like hugging those who flub the audition and saying, "why didn't someone help you so you could have succeeded at this!!!). I hope that makes sense and people reading this still like me!!!

Also, if you ever want me to read anything of yours, I'd love too!!! I do some side editing work --it's mostly academic editing, but that's due to what's available for work rather than preference. I used to wonder why author's needed editors, and then I started editing. I have mad respect for editors now, heh. Mostly because none of us can catch all the errors and flaws in our own work, we're too close to it and need other perspectives. B

My head is reeling from how much you read this past week! I looked up Nimona and The Dragon and the Unicorn (hello, why wouldn't I read something written in the tradition of The Mists of Avalon?) and they're going on my TBR list!

[Sheri]

Stephanie, the save the unicorn bundle is still going! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sa... It has that one, and it's put on by the author of The Last Unicorn. The whole bundle looked pretty solid.

What you say makes sense! Coming as an American (I forget, i think you mentioned being Canadian?) I always feel like creativity both gets discounted, and also assigned to a black or white state. Like you have to pick, are you good at math and science, or the arts. I don't even know how many people who have said "I'm not creative". Humans ARE creative, it's inherent. Just because you're not an artist or a writer doesn't mean you can't create or innovate.

I might take you up on that :) I'm trying to get my first initial people to actually read it, just to get a first impression of "what do you think?". Then I want to poke at it a little more, fill in some gaps. Then Im going to look for additional beta readers/editors etc. (It's a cyberpunk novel, if that makes a difference to your offer)

It was a pretty good reading week for me :) also I didn't have any grand plans over the weekend, so ended up doing a lot of reading.