Sunday 28 November 2010

Booklog #5

This week I finished: 

Let me describe the book I finished this week and see if you think it sounds familiar:

Socially awkward teenage girl is forced by circumstances to start a new school in a dreary grey place where she feels trapped.  She meets an alluring boy who constantly blows hot and cold towards her, leaving her unclear where she stands with him.  She tries to find out more about him from other students and school records.  Along the way she ends up in hospital after a terrible incident.  Eventually she confronts the boy about his feelings for her only to find that he's a supernatural being and has been trying to put her off him in order to keep her safe.  Despite this eventual declaration of love (which she has yearned for) she continues to fret that she's not good enough for him and wonder how he could possibly be interested in her.  When they have to part she pines for him.  

Okay, so things do take a different path in the second half of the book, but up to that point you'd have been hard pushed to deny that I was describing Twilight wouldn't you?  It's actually Fallen, by Lauren Kate, but despite the fact it felt a tiny bit 'been there, read that' I still enjoyed it a lot and really got caught up in the action.  The supernatural beings aren't vampires, which makes a nice change - you can probably guess from the title what they actually are...plus I think I gave it away last week!  There's a good balance of action and dialogue, and the school and its colourful cast of pupils are described very well (though I wouldn't want to visit).  I like this because I find it really frustrating to finish a book and still have no real grasp of how any of it looked.  I think you enjoy a story so much more if your subconscious is able to use the words provided to paint a picture as if it's going on around you, making you feel involved as opposed to just a spectator.  Definitely something to aspire to with my own writing!  4/5

Other than that, it's been a quiet week in terms of reading.  I haven't had chance to start anything new, mainly because I've got such a backlog of magazines built up that I've had to try and clear some before they take over the house!  However, my book club should be starting a new book this week, hopefully a good ol' whodunit this time. 

I'm still reading:
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
* The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (I've slogged my way through another chapter, now up to 22!)

Till Wednesday then - happy reading!  :o)
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Wednesday 24 November 2010

10k Day

'10k?' I hear you thinking, 'she's been running when she should be at home writing?'  There are many reasons why the answer to that is a resounding NO - 1) it's cold here and there would have to be a very good reason for me to leave the house and 2) run 10k - me?  Have you met me?  Okay, no, most of you haven't met me, but I can assure you that I couldn't even run 1k, let alone 10.  I'm not overweight but equally I am just not that fit! 

No, 10k Day is a concept thought up by my new writing buddy Milli Thornton over at Fear of Writing whereby writers commit to trying to write a whole 10,000 words in one day, checking in periodically to post updates on their progress (and what snacks are helping them get through it!).  As one of them fell on my Writing Wednesday I thought it would be silly not to at least try, so after a late start (I won't bore you with why that was) I applied the BICHOK principle (Bum in Chair, Hands on Keyboard) and began. 

I chose to work on my NaNoWriMo project, which has been sadly languishing while I've been working long days and/or studying. #shame#  Fortunately, I'd thought ahead and done some plotting last night so that I had a bit of a route map to follow today, rather than having to think of the plot AND all the words.  So I got off to a flying start...if you're a friend on Facebook then you may have noticed my status and subsequent comments keeping the world updated with how I was doing.  I also updated my 'Toyah the Writer' Facebook page (feel free to look it up and 'like' it if you wish!) which in turn automatically updated Twitter (again, 'ToyahTheWriter'...do you see the branding I'm trying to apply?).  I do so love all this social media! 

Keeping tabs on the Fear of Writing blog page, which is where we were all checking in and updating each other, I forged ahead with periodic spurts of inspiration where the words really did just flow from my mind, down my arms and out of my fingers into the laptop.  It's quite a magical feeling!  Nourished by a bacon sandwich, chocolate biscuits and numerous cups of tea and coffee I managed to get to 3576 before it was getting dark outside and my stomach was telling me it was time for dinner...not the 10,000 I'd been hoping for, but certainly better than I've managed to get down in one day before now.  Progress! 

If you have something you're working on (not necessarily NaNoWriMo, it can be anything at all) and are in need of motivation, the next 10k Day is this Saturday (27th) - check out Milli's blog for more details and to check in.  The feeling of camaraderie is quite something, it's just so nice to have people cheering you on when you feel like it's just you and your laptop struggling along! 
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Monday 22 November 2010

Booklog #4

Firstly, apologies for being a day late - November is Birthday Month in our family and it seems like barely a weekend can go by without meals out to celebrate various relations turning a year older.  It was too late to engage my brain last night when we got home (and is almost too late now, but luckily I drafted this on paper during my lunch break). 

This week I've sampled two 'Quick Reads' - novellas by well-known authors, intended (I presume) to tempt you to read their full-length novels.  I've never been a massive fan of short stories as I prefer to get really immersed in a long book, but these were less than a pound to download to the Kindle so I couldn't resist...  Oddly, they both have similar names - The Perfect Holiday (Cathy Kelly) and The Perfect Murder (Peter James).  But that's where the similarity ends! 

I haven't read any Cathy Kelly before but I have to say that I quite enjoyed The Perfect Holiday.  I don't usually go for what I would call 'normal life' stories, i.e. stories that aren't predominantly comedy, fantasy, history, thriller or whatever.  I don't know why but they've just never appealed - perhaps because part of me thinks that they wouldn't be different enough to normal life to be interesting.  However, I liked the way that the stories of the various characters staying at the same hotel are interwoven and also how the events that unfold lead to their lives changing in different ways.  Although it touches on serious subjects (alcoholism, bereavement) it's not overly gritty and serious and still feels quite warm and touching.  Without wishing to sound condescending, it just has a nice feel to it and I think I'll most likely go on to try some of Cathy Kelly's novels.  4/5

The Perfect Murder, on the other hand, has no such warmth and humanity - quite the opposite!  The main characters are a middle-aged married couple who are so fed up of one other that they each plot to murder the other.  I won't throw you any spoilers of course, but will just say that it's a clever plot with a good ending.  I've read Peter James' Looking Good Dead which is also very good - if you're looking for a new thriller writer to try, you could do worse than him.  4/5

And so to wrap up...

This week I finished:

The Redbreast ~ Jo Nesbo
I think you've probably gathered from my previous posts that I didn't enjoy this much.  Everything does get resolved and explained in the end, but to be honest I was so annoyed with it that I read it as quickly as possible and someone else from my book club had to explain it to me!  2/5

Angels ~ Marian Keyes
Now that I've finished it, I think this has just about the right balance of comedy and seriousness.  Things are revealed well into the second half of the story that explain a lot of issues lightly touched on in the first half and I found myself less and less able to put it down the further in I got. It starts out seemingly quite frothy and light but becomes a very compelling read.  4/5

This week I started:
Fallen ~ Lauren Kate (seems quite Twilight-esque so far, but with fallen angels instead of vampires)

I'm still reading:
Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (up to chapter 21)

That's all for now - happy reading!  :o)
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Wednesday 17 November 2010

E.P.M. (?)

And breeeeeeathe...  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, yet another Wednesday has been spent in Essay Panic Mode.  How does this happen?!  I always manage to get ahead with the course work and then let the assignment slide right until a few days before the deadline.  But anyway - the positive thing is that I managed to make 1000 words out of nothing, about a relatively complex topic, in less than a day.  If I can do that then surely making up stories out of my head should be a breeze? 

I have two whole months now till the next essay is due - plenty of time to get some writing done.  NaNoWriMo is 17 days in now, over halfway, but as you can see from the blue box on the left, I'm not exactly close to halfway in terms of word count.  #shame#  I think my target is going to have to be revised down to 10,000 words this time round, maybe next year I'll be better prepared for aiming for 50k! 

I'm not unhappy with what I've written so far but I'm having to think up the plot as I go along - I know where I want to get to later but getting there isn't as straight-forward as 'he did this then he did that then they went there' etc.  Well, it could be that straight-forward, but that wouldn't be much of a challenge would it?  I might save that idea as a last resort though...
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Sunday 14 November 2010

Booklog #3

I hope you've had a good week...the weather here has really gone downhill, with gale force winds, driving rain and all the fun that is winter in Wales.  What better excuse could there be to stay in of an evening and curl up with a book?  Not that I need an excuse of course..! 

This week I have a sneaky surprise 'started it and finished it' entry for you in the form of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  It's a former Whitbread Book of the Year and is well-known for its autistic teenage narrator.  I'd always thought that I wouldn't mind reading it but never got round to buying it, or knew anyone who had it that I could borrow it from, but on Friday a chance discovery brought the two of us together! 

For my day job I work for our local police force - as a civilian, not as an officer - and my department is within one of our main divisional HQs.  While lunching with a friend on Friday she asked if I'd seen the library yet.  Library?  What library?  It turns out we have a sort of 'trust library', where people donate books and they're stored in the atrium (where some of the lunch seating is) for anybody to take, read and return (that's the trust part!).  And fair dos - there are three units with five shelves each and they're not only full but also neatly arranged into genres...someone has been busy!  We browsed the shelves and my friend recommended Curious Incident to me and I recommended The Ice Cream Girls (Dorothy Koomson) to her.  I started it on Friday evening and was hooked - had I not had to go out to a university tutorial on Saturday I probably would have finished it that morning!  As it was, I finished on Saturday night - possibly a new record, as although I do read fast I'm not usually that fast.

I won't drop any spoilers here as I really do recommend it to everyone, but I will say that it is funny and sad and moving and educational (both about autism and about maths!) all at the same time.  It's very cleverly written, in such a way that you recognise various things happening slightly before Christopher, the narrator, does.  I felt that this was a good thing as it meant they were still a surprise to you, but that you also then got to witness his realisation and reaction separately to your own, so that becomes part of the story too.  He's a very interesting character and you really do want everything to work out for him.  Though of course I won't say here whether it does or not...  ;o)

I give Curious Incident... 5/5.  Everyone should read it! 

And now for this week's 'I'm still reading' list:

The Redbreast ~ Jo Nesbo
The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (up to chapter 20 now, following a massive push!)
Angels ~ Marian Keyes
Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett (I decided to start reading it rather than watch it on TV first)

That's all for now - thanks for reading, have a great week! 
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Wednesday 10 November 2010

Kidnapped by Homer

Sigh.  I had plans to forge ahead with Project NaNoWriMo today, however Homer (he of ancient times, not he of The Simpsons) had other ideas.  Somehow, yet another assignment deadline has rolled round and I have 1000 words to write by November 19th about either A) the theme of 'virtue' in the Iliad, or B) the relevance of material evidence (i.e. pots, statues etc) to the society which Homer wrote about.  ARGH! 

I love studying, I really do - acquiring new knowledge is a most amazing feeling, even if it's not very useful in a practical sense.  But when it comes to assignments and being tested on that knowledge I go into panic mode.  I've never missed a deadline or failed to submit something, but I always feel that what I've managed to scrape together is terrible (is there a theme here? this sounds like my other posts!) but will have to do, then when I get the mark back I'm generally pleasantly surprised.  I felt this way about the final assignment for my last full-length course and I ended up getting 98% for that!!  I suppose that as with most things in life, it comes down to confidence and self-belief.  I need to believe that I know enough about this subject and am a competent enough academic writer to put it into words. 

Not that I got as far as putting it into words today.  I'm going with option A but have spent all day researching for it so that I have something to write.  There's a tutorial this Saturday where my geographical study group will meet up for a couple of hours, so I'm hoping to get some additional inspiration from there.  Fingers crossed anyway! 

Trojan Horse, http://www.canakkale.gov.tr/eng_twoeast_westwar.htm

Incidentally, the mark came back for the last assignment that I was complaining about (ha ha!) - 75%, which equates to a B grade in Open University grading.  Not too shabby! 
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Sunday 7 November 2010

Booklog #2

Greetings!  So another Sunday evening is upon us and as usual I have that 'pre-Monday morning meh' feeling.  I often daydream about how liberating it would be just to jack in the day job and write full-time, but then I remember that I have bills to pay!  Still, at least I'm taking baby steps towards that day...

NaNoWriMo (see my previous post) has somewhat taken over my free time this week so there hasn't been much reading going on.  However I couldn't resist pushing on and finishing The Book of Secrets by Tom Harper.  I give it 4/5 and would definitely recommend it if you enjoy the 'race for the historical artefact' type of story.  I wouldn't say it brought anything particularly new to the genre - you could pretty much guess how things were going to end - but it was very well-paced and the interweaving of the historical story of Johann Gutenberg and his invention of the printed book with the present day story of Nick and Emily was done well.  They alternate chapters for most of the book and each one ends leaving you wanting more from that side of the story, but then as you start the next you remember the cliff-hanger that the other characters were left in and become absorbed in their story again.  All in all a very enjoyable read. 

Today I started reading Mythology for Dummies, as a supplement for my Open University course.  I'm a big fan of the Dummies series and I'll admit that I have quite a collection, from Scrapbooking to High Blood Pressure...whether that makes me a Dummy I don't know?!  I really like the format they follow, breaking a big subject down into sections and then into smaller sections, using lists and bullet points and so on.  They appeal to my obsessive sense of order and I really feel that you could learn about anything from them. 

Other than that, I'm still reading:

Angels ~ Marian Keyes
The Redbreast ~ Jo Nesbo
The Children's Book ~ A. S. Byatt (halfway through chapter 15 - I feel that the only way to bully myself into making progress with it is to hold myself accountable to you!)

Till next time - happy reading!  
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Wednesday 3 November 2010

NaNoWriMo, baby!

240/365 National Novel Writing Month beginsImage by owlbookdreams via Flickr
No, I'm not spouting gibberish - NaNoWriMo (link may not always work as the site is very busy) is short for National Novel Writing Month and I made the spur of the moment decision last night to sign up...

The idea is that you write every day during November, working towards a target word count of 50,000 words.  If you manage that then by the end you have a completed first draft of a novel.  A short novel, admittedly - they're usually more in the 90,000+ range - but a novel nonetheless, which you can then either continue to work on and make longer, or edit into something worthy of submission.  Given my problem with obsessively self-editing myself after every sentence, I figured this could be just the kick in the butt that I need to make me Just Sit And Write! 

So the proper start was on November 1st, but as I only heard about it for the first time yesterday I'm two days behind.  You update your profile with your current word count as often as you like and it gives you stats about your average words per day, words left till you hit the overall target, words till you hit today's goal and that sort of thing.  And there's a graph!  I do love a nice graph, they're so motivating!  If I'd started on time I 'should' (though there are no hard and fast rules, just suggested guidelines) be up to 5000 words by the end of today.  Of course I'm not, but I am up to 2002 (the 2 are important!) which I feel is pretty darned good - the most I've ever written in one day in fact.  And the best thing is that I'm not too displeased with what I've written - just letting it come out of my head onto the screen has not resulted in the terrible dross that I feared it would.  You can see my latest word count on the little blue gizmo thingy on the left of the screen. 

From what I can gather there is a lot of criticism of this whole idea, not least because it advertises itself as a contest and explicitly states that it's all about quantity not quality.  If you make it to 50,000 words (and you have to upload them so their gadget thingy can verify that you haven't just copy-pasted the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog 5500 times) then you are classed as a Winner and you get some goodies (I'm not sure what).  Many professional writers/people in the publishing world think this is bad - writing's not a competition (in that sense at least) or a race, and I would agree with that.  If people go through this process and then send the end product straight off to a publisher or agent, I can imagine that person would probably be pretty peeved at having to read through them all because 99% of them must be awful!  The first draft is just the foundations, not the finished house!  The site does say that the work done in November is just the first part of the overall process - once you've written it you do have to edit it - but I guess a lot of people must choose to ignore that, thinking that they've got all these words down, so that should be fine.

Anyway, I'm being honest with myself and acknowledging that it's unlikely I'll get to 50,000 words by the end of November (unless I take the entire month off work).  For me it's going to be more of a way to train myself to just let the words flow, with the added bonus that by the end of it I will at least have a substantial chunk of story to do with what I like.  Next year will be different though...next year I will be a WINNER!  ;oD
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