Blog Under Construction

The blog looks a bit garish right now. I’m still working on it. I will find something better soon. I hope.

Addendum: I took out the extra starry background, which helps. I’m still not sure about the header. It fails, for instance, to say the name of the blog, which, one would think, might be useful.

Three Kinds of Reading

I posted my JBR List two posts back. It was incomplete; none of the nonficiton I read was on there. I’ve been thinking about how I read, and I have admit, I don’t read every book the same way.

1) Fast reading.
This is also called “speed reading,” like the reading you learn in “speed reading” classes. I did not learn to read this way from a class. It was my natural way of reading, and later I learned that other people did not read the same way. Basically, I skim along the sentences very fast, taking in the information visually, not by subvocalizing the words. This means I can read a novel in a few hours, but it has its downside too. I am terrible at proofreading, because my eyes simply skip along the text, and if there are missing or misspelled words, my brain simply fills them in correctly. I often don’t consciously experience the words qua logos but as images, like a movie playing in my mind.

2) Data mining.
This is a technique for reading non-fiction that I learned in grad school, also reffered to as “gutting” a book. I look for the thesis, the topic sentence, the supporting arguments, and skip the decorative prose. Basically, I strip the book down to its bones, its outline. I can gut a book in about twenty minutes.

Out of curiosity, I’ve tried this technique on fiction, to see if it is as useful. If one is reading solely for entertainment, perhaps not; it destroys one’s sense of full immersion in the story, the “movie in the mind.” For a writer, however, I strongly recommend trying it. Not all the time, or you will lose your enjoyment in reading, which is deadly, though probably also a stage every writer goes through at one point. But it can also greatly enhance you love of literature to step back and x-ray the bones of the story, the armature that supports the prose.

3) Close reading.
There may be other understandings of the term “close reading,” but I use it to mean when I read very slowly, sometimes subvocalizing, but definitely seeing the words for themselves, how they fit together, how they roll off the tongue, how they link up and lean forward. In non-fiction, I do this with difficult texts. I must read all Philosophy this way, or I lose track of what the author is arguing. (Sometimes I do anyway.)

For instance, a book that you would have seen on my JBR List, if I had included nonfiction, was I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See The World. Therein, you will find this paragraph:

Understanding a metaphor (like reading a book about that process, in fact) is a seemingly random walk through a deep, dark forest of associations. The path is full of unexpected twists and turns, veering wildly off into the underbrush one minute and abrubtly disapearing down a rabbit hole the next. Signposts are like weather vanes. You can’t see the wood for the trees. Then, suddenly, somehow, you step into the clearing. A metaphor is both detour and destination, a digression that gets to the point.

This is a pop philosophy book, it’s not too hard to understand, but still I read it slowly, or at least not quickly, in order to savor paragraphs like this. In this one paragraph the author is self-referential on multiple levels. He directly reminds the reader that this is a book about understanding metaphor, then uses an extended metaphor to describe that process of understanding. He reminds the reader of a metaphorical cliche and at the same time expands the cliche into something new and original. He also manages to slip in a literary hat tip to Alice in Wonderland.

Obviously, close reading can be used for fiction too.

Addendum: A sign of the times on a closing Boarders.

Last Chance To Get Taboo at $.99

The price of Taboo is going up to its regular price of $4.95. Reviewers, don’t hesitate to email me if you haven’t received your free copy yet.

My JBR List

I’ve made more time to read fiction this year. (Some New Year’s resolutions do happen.)

As a child, I devoured fiction, which, unsurprisingly, is where I learned to write, and more importantly, learned to yearn to write. After a while, my non-fiction reading took over, leaving me few hours for novels. I decided to make a conscious effort to make time for fiction. Fortunately, thanks to my Kindle, it’s easier to find odd moments for fun reading, when I wouldn’t be able to do school-related reading anyway.

Here’s the JBR list — “just been read” — books I’ve read so far this year (since Jan. 1):

Faefever
Bloodfever

Save My Soul

My Sister Writes Porn

Soulless

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Enemies and Allies

Slave

The Crown Conspiracy
Avempartha
Nephron Rising
The Emerald Storm
Wintertide

A Discovery of Witches

House of Skin

Firelight

I also have a long TBR List. I’ll list those books as they are converted to my my JBR List.  🙂

Receiving Reviews and Not Being a Fckwit About It

I would like to thank everyone who bought The Unfinished Song: Taboo on its launch day. You helped make the debut successful, and I’m really grateful. It’s really heartwarming to know that there were readers eagerly anticipating the second book in the series.

The second book has no reviews yet, and I was not kidding yesterday that I live in terror of receiving reviews on it (what if people don’t like it?!). The only thing worse, of course, would be no reviews at all.

It’s important to keep that in mind…no reviews at all is worse than the most terrible review in the world.

I think by now probably most of the writing community has seen the pathetic train wreck of an author going ballistic over a lackluster review. For me, it was like rubbernecking at an accident. Although I knew it was a bad idea to keep reading, I couldn’t look away.

It pained me to read another book reviewer comment, “And this is is why I don’t accept self-publish for review.” Apparently she missed the case of the (ahem, traditionally) published author who tried to sue over a negative review. It’s not being self-published that is the problem; it’s being a fckwit.

Just sayin’.

I reached my own conclusion, which was that my policy of not commenting on reviewer blogs was probably for the best. Not that I would ever, ever start telling people left and right to “fck off.” If I did comment on reviewer blogs that reviewed my books, it would be to thank them for the review, regardless of the content of the review. Michelle Davidson Argyle does this, and I’ve always thought she was so gracious and delightful about it, no matter the content of the review.

However, I read a discussion between a couple of book reviewers mentioning that they don’t like the sense an author is looking over their shoulder when they write the review. Although they could obviously on speak for themselves, and other reviewers might feel differently, it kind of spooked me off commenting at all, even to express gratitude. What if it were too tempting to me to leave it at that, and I found myself wanting to answer the reviewers questions about this or that point? For instance, one very astute reviewer of The Unfinished Song: Initiate wanted to know why there were no domesticated dogs in the story, when dogs were domesticated far earlier than cats. I was tempted to jump into the comments section and say, “There are dogs in another tribe, one we haven’t met yet.” But is that really my place to jump in like that? I don’t want to give the impression that he book cannot speak for itself. So I didn’t say anything. I really liked that review, though. The reviewer made so many intelligent observations.

If I were a book reviewer, I wouldn’t want the feeling the author was hanging over my shoulder either. Still, the internet cuts both ways. If a reviewer really did write a meanie-pants review, the author is going to find it and read it and weep soggy tears over it. Even if authors don’t comment, we are just as capable of ego-googling as the next person. I actively search the internet for reviews of my books, so I can link back to them from the website. I am probably not the only author to do so.

I admit, I have considered not reading reviews at all. I can link to the site without reading them. I keep telling myself that’s what I’ll do and I came leaving anyway.

The problem is that I can’t stick to that. Morbid curiosity compels me, but it’s more than that. When else can one’s get independent feedback about one’s book? That’s too good to pass up. The danger is that the review will mention some flaw in your writing that you can’t dispute, casting you into the deepest bowels of depression. The benefit may be that a reviewer could show you an insight into the book that you were too close to see yours.

Cowardice and Sequels

The second book in my series, The Unfinished Song: Taboo, launches today. It’s all about being brave enough to break rules if those rules are wrong. Which makes it especially ironic for me to make this admission: I’m a complete coward.

I wait with trepidation to see if anyone will buy the sequel, and if they buy it, if anyone will like it. It’s ridiculous, I’m sure, but I’m really terrified no one will. What if they people who read Book 1, Initiate, and hate book two? Also, in this book, more than the first, I edge ever so gently toward more controversial subjects. (Book 3, Sacrifice, will be the real dousy, though.) It’s all very well to tell myself I will remain true to my artistic vision no matter what anyone else says, but then I am faced with real reader reaction, and I can’t help shaking.

Like I said, I’m a big coward.

It’s so much easier to write when you are unpublished and don’t have to worry about whether anyone will actually like it.

It’s deadly to a writer to fret over what people think, or try to anticipate it. (You can’t, anyway.) Some readers, even if they don’t like every last bit about the book, will like enough that they will trust me to take the rest of the journey down the road to the concluding volume. Some readers will fall by the wayside. I have to hope that I can more eager readers as more books come out, not lose them, but there’s not any guarantee. I have to be true to the story, even if I am afraid.

If you see someone stumbling around on a road, moving forward even as she has her hands over her eyes, that’s me, going ahead with the revisions on the next book, Sacrifice, which is due out at the end of May.