Reading Report: End of February 2022

Posted on 02/28/2022 by chick
  • I’m still working on Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (216/406 pages) and On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells by Leigh Michaels (62/246 pages).
  • I finished Attachments by Rainbow Rowell; Grade A-: Coworkers Beth and Jennifer know that they’re not supposed to socialize using their new company e-mail, but they do it anyway. Meanwhile, computer-guy Lincoln has been hired to read employee e-mails and enforce the company rules. But he doesn’t enforce the rules, not for those two, because he likes reading about their personal lives, especially Beth’s. Is that totally creepy and invasive? Yes, but at least he has the good grace to feel bad about it and to come clean, eventually. But if and when he meets Beth in person, will she be able to forgive him?—Because the story takes place during the Y2K panic, it feels dated, and it’s slow-paced, maybe even a little too long, but Rowell writes great dialogue (well, great dialogue-y e-mail exchanges). If you can ignore the stalker vibe, it’s a good read.
  • I try to take a lesson of some kind from every book that I read. Attachments asked me a question (“Have you ever seen The Goodbye Girl?”) and then thoroughly intrigued me with its description of that movie: “Don’t watch it if you still want to enjoy romantic comedies. It makes every movie ever made starring Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock lash itself in shame. Also, don’t watch The Goodbye Girl if it would trouble you to find Richard Dreyfuss wildly attractive for the rest of your life, even when you see him in What About Bob? or Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Now I simply must see the movie. I ordered a copy from the library, plus the 2004 version (with Jeff Daniels in the Dreyfuss role) for comparison.
  • I also finished reading The Switch by Beth O’Leary. Still reeling from her sister’s death, twenty-something Leena needs a break from her high-stress London job. Eileen, her seventy-something grandmother, is looking for a man to replace her good-for-nothing ex-husband, so they decide to swap lives, so to speak. Grandma moves to London for a few weeks to take advantage of its happening senior dating scene, and Leena moves to Grandma’s house and takes over Grandma’s neighborhood “projects.”—The story is pretty much entirely predictable but also charming. Recommended.
  • I am 2 CDS into the audiobook version of The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. Olive’s twin sister has just gotten married but can’t go on her honeymoon due to a bad case of food poisoning, so Olive takes her place, along with the best man, Ethan, who stands in as her “husband.” She and Ethan don’t get along, but isn’t a free 10-day trip to Maui worth putting up with each other?—One interesting thing about listening to the story, as opposed to reading it, is that I occasionally respond verbally to the narration (remarks like, “Well, that was dumb!” and “Of course he did!”) That’s a little weird. I don’t usually talk to my books, but then again, they don’t usually talk to me either.
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Reading Report: Latish February 2022

Posted on 02/20/2022 by chick

I am still reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. I’m about halfway through, far enough to be invested and motivated to finish it. But, the story has gotten really grim and violent, and it will be hard going from here, I suspect.

I am also reading On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells by Leigh Michaels. It’s roughly 15 years old, so I have to assume that the parts about the publishing market and the categories of romance are no longer entirely accurate or complete. The rest of it looks like it will be helpful, though.

I finished The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory (grade B+). The story is about Nik, a writer, whose short-term boyfriend unexpectedly proposes to her at a baseball game, as the whole world watches. She says no, and he gets mad, then storms off. Before she can make a getaway, a camera crew swoops in to make a juicy news story out of her. But Carlos, a kind and considerate doctor who is there watching the game with his sister, sees what’s about to happen. He and his sister step in and rescue Nik from the press. So begins a friendship between Nik and Carlos that soon blooms into romance, but can they commit to a relationship, or do they want to keep it strictly casual? Reading this book, I learned a lot about what I like about romance novels, and what I don’t like, and about how I would have proceeded if I’d written the story myself. It was educational in that way, and entertaining.

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That’s Just the Way It Is

Posted on 02/19/2022 by chick

Covid isn’t over, but the people of Rhode Island are over it. The governor has dropped the state mask mandate, and now the school board has voted to make masks optional as of 3/4. I knew this was coming, so it’s no big shocker, and I guess I’m OK with it. If given the choice, Livia will probably ditch the mask and Marshall will probably keep it, at least for a while. Though I’d rather they both continued to wear masks, I’m not sure that forcing it on Livia would be wise. But, we don’t need to decide today. We still have some time to think about it.

The school superintendent also announced that, excepting the new air filtration systems, they’re going back to business as usual (i.e., no more Covid mitigation measures). I guess I should have realized that was coming, too. I’m not comfortable with the idea of dropping all preventative measures. It seems like asking for trouble. But, that’s just the way it is. I have no power to change this, and stressing over it won’t do me any good. The Pandemic has taught me that much.

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Today’s Advice

Posted on 02/18/2022 by chick

I was browsing through some books from my shelves, trying to decide which ones to keep and which ones to donate, when I came across this bit of advice:

If you are planning to write fiction, do not sit around too long trying to think up a good story. If you work hard, the story will come to life as you are writing it. Remember also that all decent fiction has the same inner story: the story of discovery.

Robert Grudin

I agree in principle, and I promise not to “sit around too long.” I know I’m going to have to put pen to paper soon. Right now I’m focused on getting my office and my thoughts in order.

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Big Stack o’ Books

Posted on 02/17/2022 by chick
Research
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Seeking Recommendations

Posted on 02/13/2022 by chick

Here is a crazy idea: I’m going to write a romance novel.

Why? Mostly because I need a quick writing project to build my writing muscles back up. Plus, Hallmark Publishing is having open submissions next month, which is what prompted the idea, and conveniently it also provided a deadline. Strictly speaking, I’d only need three chapters to submit, but I’d like to finish the book by the deadline, because I don’t want another unfinished project on my desk (like I don’t have enough of those already!).

I understand the basics of how romances work. I’ve read more than a few over the years, though not so much recently, and I’ve watched many of them on the screen. But the genre is vast, and I don’t know everything I need to know about it, so I ordered some how-tos. I also downloaded a romance e-book so that I could immediately start reacquainting myself with the form. I picked one with a Christmas theme, because I like watching Hallmark Christmas movies. It seemed like a relatively safe choice.

I started reading the book last night, and it soon reminded me of why I don’t read romances anymore. Most of them stink. The stories are boring, the characters are cardboard, and the writing is ghastly. This is not me being overly picky. When it comes to romances, I’m eager to be entertained. All I want is for two characters who are reasonably likeable to engage in some believable dialogue while circumstances conspire to throw them together, pull them apart, and then bring them together again for a happy ending. The circumstances don’t need to be extraordinary. They just need to be interesting, and almost anything can be made interesting with a little spin. The formulaic plot structure doesn’t have to drag the quality down. If anything, it should liberate the writers to spend more time on getting the details right. And flashy language is not required. Simple, grammatical English will suffice.

That’s not asking a lot, and I don’t understand why the books of this genre tend to be so bad given that the bar is set so low. It’s incredibly frustrating to me, both as a reader who would love nothing more than to curl up with a good romance novel, and as a writer who wants a good model upon which to build one. I know that some authors have managed to get it right, at least often enough to keep the reading population hopeful, but I don’t have time to read through dozens of bad ones in the hopes of finding a few that are good. I could definitely use some recommendations.

So, have you read any good romances lately?

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Reading Report: Mid-February 2022

Posted on 02/12/2022 by chick
  • I finished reading The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding (Grade: B+) near the end of January, allowing me to get started on my February reading a little early (hooray!). In this story, twelve-year-old Prosper Redding, born into a powerful and wealthy family, finds out that his inheritance comes with a major downside: there’s a demon inside of him who will take possession of his body on his thirteenth birthday. I enjoyed the conversations between Prosper and his demon, Alastor, as they vied for control over Prosper’s life, but I didn’t connect much with the rest of the story. It felt sort of childish, which would be an unfair criticism to lob at a children’s book, so let’s just say that the problem was me, not the book. Livia read it before I did, and she liked it enough to read the sequel.
  • Note of interest: from Prosper Redding I learned that in Iceland a “skúffuskáld” (translation: “drawer poet”) is someone who writes poems and doesn’t try to publish them. Writing poetry strictly for personal pleasure is apparently a common pastime in Iceland. Nice.
  • I am currently reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. The title is a reference to a Biblical parable (Matthew 25:14-30). In this parable, a rich man is about to go traveling, and before he leaves, he gives his servants some money in the form of talents (according to www.biblegateway.com, “A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer.”). Two of the servants invest their money and, by the time their master returns, they have made more money. The master praises them. The other servant hides his talent away, and upon his master’s return, he is rebuked, his talent is taken from him, and he is cast into darkness. The parable doesn’t make much sense to me, TBH, but the point is, whether it was fear or laziness or prudence that made that servant hide his talent, he got screwed, and one meaning to take from it is, I guess, “Use your talents wisely.” I probably won’t know exactly what Butler was getting at with the title until I finish the book. Because Parable of the Talents is the sequel to Parable of the Sower, I’m not going to say any more about it for now, because I don’t want to spoil anything for my friend who hasn’t read Sower yet.
  • Parable of the Talents is interesting, but also slow-going and grim, so I took a short break from it to read Still Life by Louise Penny. You wouldn’t think a murder mystery would offer a break from grimness, but a single murder that has a rationale is a lot easier to deal with than multiple, senseless acts of violence.
  • I finished Still Life by Louise Penny and gave it an A- grade. In this mystery, a popular former schoolteacher is killed in the woods of a small town in Canada, and Inspector Armand Gamache is called in to solve the case. I gave the story a high grade, but I’m not going to lie–it had some noticeable weaknesses, including a constantly shifting point of view, a sort of weird and mean side plot about a rookie homicide agent, the inspector’s attention to a detail which didn’t seem to warrant it (and which was, of course, a major clue to the murderer’s identity), plus some other odds and ends that didn’t quite ring true. The story succeeded in spite of all those things, testament to other positive qualities of the novel. Honestly, though, I think what I loved most about it was the author herself, whose general attitude seemed kind and upbeat. I will probably seek out more books from this series at some point.
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Diagnosis

Posted on 02/11/2022 by chick

A few months ago I noticed that I was having some trouble reading small print. The problem was with my right eye. I figured that it was a cataract, because cataracts are common in my family, even among non-elderly folks such as myself. But, I knew that there were all sorts of things that can go wrong with eyes, and I didn’t want to make a foolish assumption. I was overdue for an eye exam anyway, so I decided to visit the eye doctor.

I had my appointment yesterday. Yes, I may indeed have a cataract forming in my right eye, but that’s not what’s causing my vision loss. The problem is something called degenerative macular retinoschisis. My retina is splitting apart, right in the middle of my field of vision. Actually, I have retinoschisis in both eyes, but it’s less pronounced in the left eye and located away from the macula. The doctor showed me the pictures that he had taken of the insides of my eyes. The macula is supposed to look like a cool blue dot, as it does in my left eye. In my right eye, it’s a big red disk. Well, shit.

When I got home, I consulted Dr. Internet. There wasn’t too much information available, and some of it was difficult to understand, but here is the impression that I got–

  • Retinoschisis is relatively common in people with myopia.
  • Usually it’s not a big deal, because it’s located in a place where it doesn’t cause much trouble, as is the case in my left eye. It is less common for the macula to be affected.
  • Unfortunately, the condition causes irreparable nerve damage, but it may be possible to prevent further vision loss with a surgical procedure.

Though this condition can progress rapidly, it doesn’t happen overnight. The eye doctor said it’s probably been going on for a while. I recall now the conversation that I had at my last eye exam. That doctor told me that there was a cataract in my left eye. I asked him if that was what caused the shadow I sometimes saw while reading, and he said that it probably was. Now I wonder.

Obviously this condition sucks but, on the bright side, it’s is only affecting my vision in one eye, and I still see well overall (20/20 with my glasses on, says the new eye doctor). So there’s no cause for immediate alarm. I have an appointment to see a specialist next month, and I guess I’ll learn more then.

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It’s Still Snowing 1/29/22

Posted on 01/29/2022 by chick
  • It just keeps snowing, snowing, snowing. There was a travel ban in effect in RI until 8 p.m., and I think it may have been extended until midnight. I don’t mind. I have nowhere to go.
  • I talked to my mom and my mother-in-law today. All is well in Momland. Life is a little tougher in Dadville, thanks to snow removal, but the Dads are said to being doing OK, too.
  • I have brought into being an imp who sits in my brain and warns me whenever he thinks I’m jumping to conclusions or being judgmental. He’s a very busy little demon.
  • I feel like I’ve done nothing today, but it’s important to note that I cleaned all the mail off my desk, attempted to pay a bill online (not my fault it didn’t work), did some laundry, sharpened FIVE whole pencils (yes, five!), and threw some stuff into the recycling. I am practically the Queen of Accomplishment, yes?
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This Snowy Morning

Posted on 01/29/2022 by chick
  • As I’ve learned the hard way, the number of posts in my drafts folder is an indication of my mental state. The higher the number, the worse the state. Earlier this month, the number was in the thirties, possibly the highest it’s ever been. So I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks cleaning out the folder, and now there are only two drafts, the lowest it’s been in years. I don’t know if this will help my mental state, but it is at least a good sign.
  • When I woke up this morning I could not remember what day of the week it was, so I wasn’t sure if I should get up immediately or go back to sleep. When I finally figured out that it was Saturday, I was relieved, until I remembered that we were supposed to get a blizzard today. I didn’t want to wake up to a blizzard, so I went back to sleep. In my dreams, the blizzard had arrived but the snow was not sticking. The air was white with falling snow, but the grass was still lush and green.
  • Green grass in the middle of winter? Dreams are crazy.
  • But I’m awake now, because one cannot sleep all day. The storm really is here and the whole world has gone white. The wind is huffing and puffing and trying to blow the trees down. It may be succeeding. I just heard a sound from outside that was likely the crack of a falling tree limb.
  • It’s frigid in my office, and I’m enjoying the cold for a change. But, because there’s the possibility of losing our power today, I’ve turned the space heater on. When we lose our power, we lose our heat, and if that’s going to happen, I’d rather start out with a warm room than a cold one. I should do a load of laundry and run the dishwasher again soon, just in case.
  • I don’t feel like doing anything, though. There are four pencils on my desk that need to be sharpened. If I cannot do at least that much today, then there is no hope for me. The power just flickered, a message to get a move-on and do the things that need doing.
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