Books

Holiday (and not) Reading

I did a lot of reading over the holidays, not all of which I’d necessarily recommend, but I did find some good books to share.

If you’re looking for a good Christmas season read that isn’t necessarily a “Christmas” book, take note for next year to look for One Day in December, by Josie Silver. It’s a chick-litty romance that’s kind of like a British When Harry Met Sally in book form. On a December day, a young woman looks out a bus window and makes eye contact with a young man waiting at a bus stop, and there seems to be a moment of instant connection. She has an impulse to get off the bus and go meet him, but the bus moves on before she can act on it. He becomes something of a figure of fantasy for her, but she doesn’t see him again — until the next December when her roommate introduces her new boyfriend to her, and it’s the guy from the bus stop. The story follows this group of friends over the next decade. I’ll admit, I did want to throttle some of the characters some of the time, but they’re probably acting as you’d expect for that age and I’m just being old. On the whole, though, it was the kind of book you end up reading in one or two sittings because you want to know how things will work out and you need to get these characters out of the painful situations they find themselves in, like the dilemma of whether she should tell her roommate that her new boyfriend is the fantasy man they’ve been talking about for a year. Does it count that they’ve never actually spoken and she’s not even sure he remembers or recognizes her? Although the book is quite romantic, I think it’s really more about friendship. The holiday season plays a big role, and most of the major events happen during the holidays, so there’s some nice atmosphere, but it’s not really a “Christmas” book, so it’s good if you want something to kind of fit the mood but Hallmark movies are overkill for you.

After Christmas, I guess I went the exact opposite direction because my next read was an urban fantasy called The Immortals, by Jordanna Max Brodsky. I’m not even entirely sure how I came to pick this up. I think the title of the sequel (which I now don’t recall) caught my eye in the library, then I saw that it was a sequel and looked for the first one. In this series, the Greek gods are still around and have taken roles in the modern day. They’re also gradually losing their powers and immortality as belief in them has faded. Artemis is our main character, and she’s now a private investigator in New York, specializing in protecting women from abusive men. She comes across a grisly murder that looks to her like a sacrifice from an ancient Greek ritual, and since it was a woman who was murdered, she considers it her jurisdiction. Meanwhile, a classics professor who knew the murdered woman has also recognized that it’s not just an ordinary killing, but he can’t convince the police of his theory. The two of them team up to solve the case. I’m not ordinarily fond of “the gods walk among us” stories, but this one worked for me because it was fun seeing how the Greek gods fit into the modern world (Apollo is an indie rock star, because of course) and how they’re coping with their relative weakness and looming mortality. I also like the professor. He’s pretty much my type of character (in the Owen and Lord Henry vein). If you like American Gods and that sort of thing, or if you like paranormal mysteries, this is something to look for. I’ll definitely be picking up more books in the series.

Then I went to something completely different, a book I guess you could look at as the British version of Southern Gothic — the disintegrating family full of secrets. It was The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. It has a lot of parallels with Downton Abbey — same time period, similar look at what’s going on upstairs vs. downstairs. In a framing story, an elderly woman in the 1990s is approached by a filmmaker making a movie about an event that happened in the 20s at the grand manor house nearby. The woman is the only living person who was there for the event and the filmmaker wants to consult her. That sends her down memory lane, recalling how she went to work there as a housemaid as a teenager, just before WWI started, and how she became fascinated with the lord’s grandchildren, who visited often. The story follows them into the 1920s, when the narrator has become lady’s maid to one of the granddaughters. There are layers and layers to the secrets surrounding this family — secret loves, secret ambitions, secret motives — and they all build toward tragedy. It’s not exactly a light, fun read, but it is really juicy and probably something that fans of Downton Abbey will enjoy, with even more drama and scandal than in that show.

It kind of makes me want to write something like that, but with magic involved somehow. I also like the idea of the framing story, of the person in the present tracking down what happened in the past.

writing

Revising Forward and Backward

I’m considering last week a kind of trial run at the new year. I tried to treat the week after New Year’s Day like regular working days, but the epic ordeal of waiting for a plumber for days on end disrupted my schedule. But now the last holiday party is over, all the Christmas stuff is down and out of the way, and I’m back to what passes for “normal” around here, so the new year is beginning in earnest, for real this time. It’s time to get out of holiday mode and back onto my usual schedule (well, until the next plumbing appointment for the serious work required to do the repairs the plumber assessed when he finally came).

That means I really have to get to work on this book that’s due in a couple of weeks. I’m in the phase of revision in which fixing one thing means going back and tinkering with something else. I’m also having the “hey, wait a second” moments in which I question things I’ve written. For instance, I’ll know why my viewpoint character is in a scene, but then I stop to wonder why the other characters are there and realize either they shouldn’t be there or I need to come up with a reason for them to be there. But then when I come up with a reason for them to be there, that changes something else.

I seem to be working both forward and backward. As I move forward fixing things, it brings up fixes I have to do in the past, which bring up other fixes I need to track back and do.

But I can feel the book getting better, and that’s a good feeling.

writing life

Feeding the Muses

I’ve been trying to use my time more productively, so even if I’m procrastinating, I’m still doing something worthwhile. As an alternative to clicking around on social media while I’m putting off doing something, I dug into my files and found a bunch of online courses I took about a decade ago. Some of them, I actually remember taking, but I’ve changed and my career has changed, so my answers to all the homework assignments are totally different. Some I don’t even remember taking. If I really don’t want to do whatever it is that I should be doing, at least I’m reading this material and doing the exercises, which is moderately helpful. It’s also been good this week since I’ve spent much of the week waiting on a plumber. I had an appointment on Wednesday, and when the appointment window passed with no word, I called, and they thought my appointment was Thursday (I’m almost certain it was Wednesday because I took the first open slot after the holiday). Then Thursday they called and said one of their trucks broke down, so could I reschedule for Friday. Now I’m waiting yet again. I can’t really focus on writing when I’m waiting, so doing these courses is a good way to spend the time.

Anyway, one of the courses was on finding and nourishing your “muses.” I’m not sure why I have these materials because I’ve never been that big into the “woo woo” side of writing. I haven’t named my muse, I don’t talk about “the girls in the basement” or anything like that, so I doubt I would have paid for this course. It must have been a bonus offering or something that came with a writing group membership. But the theme of the year is exploring, so why not?

The course encouraged us to really visualize our muses — the creative part of our subconscious — and then that will allow you to figure out how to feed and care for them so they can be even more creative and you can learn to listen to their input. I’ve never really thought of my creative side other than as The Voices (as in “the voices in my head said I should do this”), but I decided that if I have muses, they’re a group kind of like the Inklings, that group at Oxford that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I imagine a group of professors hanging out in pubs and tea rooms, chatting about fantasy by the fire over cups of tea, or else they take long rambles around the countryside, making up stories as they go. Feeding these muses would involve going to libraries and bookstores, sitting by the fire with a cup of tea, or taking long walks.

Since it was a cold, dreary day yesterday, I decided to take “feeding” literally and made crumpets and tea to have by the fireplace (my fireplace is filled with candles so I can get the warm glow without the hassle or mess). I don’t know if it sparked any creativity, but it was a fun break in the day and I still met my working time goal (the crumpets have to rise for about 45 minutes, which put a nice timer on a writing session).

crumpets and tea
Now I’ll have to make time for other things my professors might enjoy.

Books

Tropes I Can’t Resist

During the holidays, I saw a thing going around Twitter of people talking about what tropes make for an automatic “yes” on a book — if you see that thing mentioned on the back cover/cover flap, you’ll buy the book. Thinking about this, I don’t believe I have any because other things can balance it out or overwhelm the one thing I do like, but there are certainly things that get my attention, and when I think about those, they’re not quite what I’d have expected.

One of the tropes I can’t seem to resist is magical memory loss. I pretty much hate anything to do with amnesia in romances, but put it in a magical (or possibly science fiction) setting, and I’m all over it. I love exploring the idea of what would you be if you didn’t know who you were — get rid of all the baggage and expectations, and what kind of person are you? I also like the related trope of magical false identity — due to magic, you’re given a fake identity and the memories that go with it. Can you tell that something’s wrong? Does your real self try to break free? I had some fun with this in book 7 of my Enchanted, Inc. series.

I know that the secret/hidden royalty trope is considered a cliche in fantasy, but I love it so much. I suspect I was heavily influenced by Briar Rose in Sleeping Beauty, who lived in a hut in the woods but learned she was really a princess. I think that escapist thing is a big part of the appeal of fantasy. You can imagine that you may seem ordinary, but could you possibly be someone important, hidden away? Give me an apprentice underwater basketweaver who turns out to be the long-lost heir (or possibly the child of the great wizard), and I’m there. I’m not quite as keen on the related Chosen One trope when it involves prophecy, but do love when the unexpected person turns out to be exactly what was needed or has abilities that no one would have thought to look for in someone like that.

Portals! I love a portal fantasy. I think that’s because it makes it possible to imagine that I could have that kind of adventure. I don’t live in a fantasy land, but I love the idea that I could visit there (and if I turn out to be the long-lost princess, that’s even better).

Colleagues into lovers — you have to work together to solve a problem/go on a quest together, and as you go through difficulties, you develop feelings? Yes, please. But only if you keep your priorities straight and focus on your goal. No pausing for a romantic interlude when you’ve got a deadline and the bad guys are right behind you.

I seem to have a thing for charming thieves, which is odd because I can’t really stand the “bad boy” type, but when I see a Robin Hood kind of character — a thief for a good cause in a society where the usual rules aren’t working — I want to read it. No ordinary criminals, though. On the other hand, I also can’t seem to resist nerdy wizards, especially the guy who seems utterly inept, but that’s because his talents are so unusual that the typical training doesn’t work on him. He may not be able to do the most rudimentary spells that even young children learn, but he can do things that even the most advanced wizards can’t even imagine. There’s a lot of bumbling and angst before they figure out that he’s not utterly incompetent or clumsy, after all.

I’m sure I have a few more book triggers, but I’d have to go through my shelves to figure out what they are because I’m generally not conscious of what it is that makes me want a particular book. And if I start going through my shelves, I won’t get anything else done all day. Eight hours later, I’ll be sitting on the floor in front of the bookcases, re-reading a book I hadn’t thought about in ages.

The Year Ahead

I was all eager and excited to kick off the new year, but I have an appointment with a plumber to get a dripping faucet fixed and a showerhead replaced sometime between 9 and 11. At first, I was busy clearing out the tub space so he could work — moving all the shampoo bottles, etc. Then I went ahead and tidied the bedroom. And then the living room. Now I’m waiting for the “I’m on my way” call. I can’t really get much done while waiting when I may have to drop everything, so I guess getting started on writing will have to wait until after things are fixed.

I did a lot of goal setting for this year, and it mostly comes down to two themes I have for the year: Exploration and Intention.

The Exploration part is about learning and trying new things and going to new places. I had planned to travel last year, but the medical stuff got in the way. I’m hoping to make it happen this year. I also have a bit of the itch for change that seems to hit me every few years, and I caught myself looking up different kinds of classes over the holidays. So I may try to learn some new things, both work-related and just for fun.

The Intention part is what will make that happen. I learned last year that my life goes better when I’m conscious and intentional about how I spend my time. It’s way too easy to drift and get sidetracked and fall into inertia, and then I end up spending way too much time on things that aren’t productive and that aren’t actually that much fun, so I’m trying to really think about what I’m doing.

That’s harder on a day when I’m stuck waiting, but I am trying to be productive about it.

I’m hoping to spend a lot of time writing, a lot of time reading, to get my house in order (I made a good start last year, but I want to get it done this year), and to get back into music on a more regular, serious way (singing when I’m not at choir practice, going back to working more on the harp and piano, maybe pick up the flute again).

I’ve already got two books in the pipeline for publication this year and another one written that I hope will find me a new publisher, so I already know this is going to be a good year. Maybe it can also be a great one.

2018 In Review

Taking a break from my holiday to do a year in review …

This was a weird year for me. I didn’t have anything new published, so it feels like nothing happened. But, really, a lot happened.

On the professional side, I had to take over all my self-published books. I’d been working with my agent on that, and then she decided to get out of that part of the business, so in order for the payments to come to me, everything had to be unpublished and republished, which took a fair bit of time and effort. Now I’m having to deal directly with the various vendors, like editors, artists, designers, etc., which means dealing with paperwork and other business stuff. So, basically I started a whole new business this year without planning to. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time working on a book that I ended up backburnering. I love the concept, but I don’t think I wrote the book the concept deserves, and I need to get well away from what I did write before I can fix it without just tinkering with what I’ve written.

On the up side, I sold a short story and a novel that should be coming out in 2019. After a slow start to the year, writing wise, I ended the year by writing three books during the fall.

Then there was all the medical stuff that happened. I’ve been reasonably healthy except for seasonal allergies and maybe one bad cold that turns into bronchitis every year. While I was trying to republish all those books, I developed a splitting headache that I thought was just from the stress and focus, but it didn’t go away. I couldn’t even seem to sleep. When I took my blood pressure, it was high enough that the device blinked the “call your doctor” symbol. So I did. The doctor thought it was likely thyroid related, but my thyroid levels were normal. That led to an ultrasound that found nodules, which meant a biopsy, an MRI, and a bunch of other tests. Fortunately, the biopsy came back benign, and no cancer showed up on any of the tests or scans. They did find that I have a thyroid disease that’s not causing problems now but that I have to watch (and some reading I’ve done suggests that the symptoms I had may have been thyroid-related in spite of the tests being normal). Meanwhile, I got a good workover to see what other health problems I might have and found that I’m really quite healthy other than the thyroid stuff, though I am supposed to be watching my cholesterol (I kind of fell off the wagon during the holidays). All of that was time consuming and stressful, but I did end up with some peace of mind to have it confirmed that I’m healthy. It was after all that was past that I really picked up on my writing, so I hope I can continue that pace going forward.

The other big thing this year was that I got rid of cable TV. That may have something to do with how I read 105 books this year. I really cut back on my TV watching, and I have to say that I generally don’t miss cable. Just with Amazon, the antenna, and the stuff you can stream for free, I have more than enough stuff to watch. The only challenge is when it’s something specific you want to watch that’s only on cable. For instance, I haven’t yet seen the latest season of Doctor Who, but that ends up on Amazon eventually. I’m finding that I’m mostly watching documentaries and PBS-type programs and my attention span for passively watching is getting a lot shorter.

As for those 105 books, one thing that’s unusual this year is that only about 5 of them were re-reads, and they were mostly work-related re-reads, where I was reading them again because they related to something I was working on. I’m a big re-reader, so it’s odd for me to spend a year without re-reading things just because I love them. I’ve been trying to broaden my reading horizons, so I’ve been reading things I normally wouldn’t that are on award lists or that were handed out at conferences. That’s been a mixed bag. I was looking at my reading log, and there were a lot of books I barely remember reading (or don’t remember at all just by the title). There were a few things I remember looking forward to but was disappointed in when I read them. I have very few favorites from the year, books that stand out for me that I would want to read again. I read a lot of non-fiction, most of it at least semi-work related. Some was specifically book research. Some was general education that may factor into my work. I read a lot about productivity, focus, and creativity.

I think my big discovery of the year was Robin Hobb, who was new to me. I don’t know how I missed those books, but I’ve read two of her trilogies and have started a third. The two books I read this year that I would like to re-read were Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows.

Now I plan to spend the rest of the day reorganizing my bookcases. We’ll see how long that lasts before I find myself sitting in front of the bookcase and reading.

Christmas Holiday

I reached the point in revisions where I really need to revise. I’m not entirely happy with what plays out at this point, but I’m not sure what to change. I like the ending, and I like a lot of what I have written, but it seems to be missing something, and I’m not sure what that something is. Maybe that means this is a good time to give myself a holiday to think about it. I have some brainstorming to do, and I usually get my best ideas when I’m not actively trying to have ideas.

I’ll be taking next week off, though I may do a year-end wrap-up post next Friday. I need to look back through my notes for my favorite things of the year. This year has felt very long, but then the end seemed to come quite quickly. I’ve already topped myself in writing time compared to last year, in spite of having a big gap in the middle of the year when I didn’t get much done. That gives me hope that next year will be even better.

But before then, there’s Christmas. I’m going to a get-together with friends Sunday night (I’m bringing dessert and need to decide what to make — there are a lot of new recipes I want to try, but at the same time, I really want some old, familiar things), then there are the two Christmas Eve services, and then I’m going to my parents’ house for Christmas day. I’m going to try not to work next week because I need a true holiday, but if an idea strikes me, I may not be able to help myself.

Now I need to make a trip to the library because I’ve got a book due today and a book I had on hold has come in. The rest of the day, I may do a little brainstorming, just to put the facts of the book in my brain for the subconscious to play with, and then it’s time to go into full Christmas mode.

So, a merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

Cozy Time

I’m finding that the “get up and work before doing anything else” concept doesn’t work as well when I’m doing revisions. For writing a draft, that foggy morning brain state is wonderful for creativity. When I’m trying to be critical and analytical, I find myself just staring at the screen and dozing off. So maybe I should think of something to be drafting early in the morning while I’m doing revisions in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, I had a lovely realization when I was thinking about the holiday things I want to get around to doing: They don’t have to necessarily be done during the holiday season. The public things like festivals and displays are tied to time, but I can do the cozy evening in throughout the winter. I can bake things whenever I want. Cookies aren’t just for Christmas. There’s the Danish concept of hygge that’s all about coziness at home in the winter, and there’s a similar Norwegian concept of koselig that loosely translates to coziness, warmth, and contentment. It involves fires, candles, blankets, and, apparently, waffles. It’s their way of dealing with cold, snowy, dark winters. Here, where we don’t get dark early in the afternoon and don’t get snow, it’s more of an optional thing that can be interspersed with going outside. Then again, the Norwegians apparently get outside even with the cold and snow. Then it’s even more fun to come home to a roaring fire in the fireplace, candlelight, and hot cocoa and waffles.

So apparently it’s genetic. I’ve never been to Norway, but I have found my people.

I think I’m going to turn it into a month-long (heck, why not take it into February and make it two months) holiday season, making an effort to spend time reading with a mug of tea and some candles lit. Not that this is different from the way I normally spend my time, but I don’t always think to make it feel like an occasion or a special treat. It’s all about the mindset.

Meanwhile, today is sunny and relatively warm, but it’s so windy that I don’t think going outside would be a great idea. I’d get blown off my feet.

And in totally unrelated news, tonight is the special two-hour wrap-up movie of the TV series Timeless. I loved that show and the network was utterly clueless in how to deal with it. When it got the surprise renewal after the first season (after initially being cancelled), a lot of the feedback from fans was about how it was a series the whole family could watch together, and it was even educational because it highlighted forgotten people in history or people who didn’t really get the credit, so people then looked up these figures. So what did the network do? Schedule it in the latest prime-time slot, too late for kids to watch. At least it’s on early tonight.

Edging Back into the Rat Race

And we have now reached the holiday panic portion of our year. Not that I have anything to panic about. My shopping is done and I don’t have that many more events. But I’ve just realized how little time I have before Christmas, how much of that time is at least somewhat scheduled, and how many thing I planned or hoped to do that I haven’t done. Every year I have this mental list of holiday activities, and I never seem to get around to all of them. We’re not talking super busy activities, just quiet time for reading or watching movies. I had books and movies on my list and have realized that there’s almost no time left for quiet evenings at home. I have a library book I haven’t yet finished and one I had on hold just came in, plus there were some of the Hallmark books on hoopla I wanted to read.

Meanwhile, I’ve got that book that I need to revise, but I keep getting sidetracked. At least yesterday’s sidetrack was somewhat work-related. I’d been thinking about going back to looking for some freelance work to monetize my spare time. I don’t want to get an actual job with any kind of regular schedule, but I used to pick up the occasional writing or editing project and it would be good to go back to doing that. It’s a nice way to diversify my income. I’ve come to the realization that I can manage about four hours of fiction writing a day before my brain runs out of steam, so having a way to switch gears and still make money would be nice. But getting out there and drumming up clients would take a lot of time and effort. I heard about an agency that manages employment for creative types — they recruit creative people for companies, and you work for the agency as an employee, so this income isn’t subject to self-employment taxes and they handle paying you so you don’t have to chase down invoices. I’ve been looking at their listings every so often to see what’s out there, and they had one that might as well have had my picture on it. But that meant I needed a resume, and it turns out that I didn’t have one on my current computer. I haven’t needed one in about twenty years.

So I had to create one. I thought I’d take the easy route and use one of the Word templates. Bad decision. Somehow, highlighting the template text and typing over it was not the easy way to do this. I’m not sure how, but adding a line of text that in no way filled the page added two pages to the document, and I couldn’t get rid of them. If I were just printing this, that would be fine. I’d just print the first page and ignore the rest. But it’s being sent electronically.

I ended up creating something from scratch using the formatting ideas from the template. That still took some tinkering. I’ve seen that joke going around about how moving something a quarter of an inch in Word pretty much brings about the destruction of society, and it’s almost too true to be funny.

So now I have an actual resume and I’ve registered with this agency. The lovely thing about all this is that I don’t actually need a job, so I won’t be devastated if I don’t get it. Picking up a few projects would be nice and would allow me to build my savings, but otherwise I can spend my time writing fiction. I can afford to be picky about the assignments I take — strictly on a project basis and off-site, nothing regular that requires commuting. I also now have strong motivation to work on these revisions because this assignment would start in January, and the book is due in January.

Life

Musical Exploration

Not only did Sunday mark the end of my crazy time, it was also the last time other than special events (like Easter) that I’ll have to deal with two services on a Sunday morning. Starting at the beginning of the new year, we’re going to a new schedule that merges the two traditional services into one that’s later than the old “early” service and earlier than the old “late” service. That will mean getting there a bit earlier every week, but never having to get there super-early and getting home earlier, for a longer Sunday afternoon. I’m looking forward to the change.

But there is a big downside. The early service was where I managed to get over what had been a crippling stage fright where music was concerned. The choir didn’t usually sing for that service, so they’ve done various things over the years to provide music. For a while, they’d assign a small group to sing the same piece the choir would be doing in the late service. Since I’m a soprano, I knew I’d be heard, but it wasn’t quite like singing a solo, and that helped me broaden my comfort levels. Even after they started having the scholarship singers sing solos for that service (these are generally music majors from a nearby university who get a stipend for singing with the choir), during the summer they’d call upon regular choir members to do music, so I started with duets and eventually sang solos. But now we don’t have that outlet anymore, and I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the music in the new service. The Sunday school stuff comes afterward, so they’re on a tighter schedule, and that likely means they won’t be adding music. All the solos for choir anthems have been automatically assigned to the scholarship singers under the new choir director, so this means that there won’t be any more opportunities to sing solos, and if I want to maintain that comfort level I fought so hard for, I’m going to need to find new places to sing.

I’ve been looking into some other choral groups, like community chorales or one of the local Sweet Adeleines groups. There are a few potential issues there — there tends to be a soprano glut, so they’re not exactly going to be excited about a new soprano, and that means solo opportunities may be as rare as they are at church, since newcomers will probably have to wait in line and there will be lots of sopranos with music degrees also trying to get those solos. Plus, I’m not sure I can deal with adding a commitment one night a week on an ongoing basis. They do offer the chorale at the local junior college as a continuing education/non-credit course, and it meets in the afternoons, so that’s a possible option.

I’ve also considered exploring my interest in folk/traditional/Celtic music. There are some organizations in the area that offer lessons and some jam sessions/music circles. If I get my lip back in shape for playing the flute and get back on working on the harp, I might be able to find a group to perform with. (And this could also kind of count as work-related, since a lot of my story ideas incorporate music.) Even without finding a group, they seem to have some music circle opportunities where you can perform for others, and that’s really just what I want. It doesn’t have to be on a big stage, just staying used to the idea of other people hearing me sing.

Or there’s musical theater. I’ve always loved it, but I’ve really only done one show. I’d been considering looking into some acting classes as a way to figure out how to better convey emotions in my writing, so that makes this also work-related. There is a big time commitment, but it’s shorter term. Instead of a night every week all year (or during the school year) it might be most nights for a month or so.

But before I worry about any of this, I probably need to do some work to get my voice in better shape. It’s something that takes daily practice, and between being sick off and on throughout the fall and being caught up in working on books, I haven’t been doing that. And I also have a book due in January. But then I’ll start exploring more.