Summer Readings

All right everyone, I can't decide what book I should read next. As you all know, I finished Bitten over the weekend... Therefore, I should pick something else up by the end of next week.

Here's what I have on hand that I haven't taken the time to read:

• Illusion by Frank Peretti 

• Valley of Bones by Eric Wilson (the third of the Jerusalem's Undead Trilogy, which I highly recommend based on the first two alone)

• Redeeming Love by Francene Rivers

• Doctor Who: The Story of Martha by Dan Abnett

• Enders Game by Orson Scott Card 

• Havah by Tosca Lee

• Sphere by Michael Crichton

Post your votes in the comments here or on my facebook page! I'll do my best to read your favorites within the next couple of months, and I promise as soon as I finish the book I'll post a review on here to let you know whether or not I think it'll be worth your time to read. ;-)

[love]

{RD}

Bite me, Coombs.

Recently, a friend had me read Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. I finally finished it, and I thought I'd write up a little review.

In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Armstrong has tendency to overwrite and give information that the reader doesn't need in order to understand simple conversations that are about to happen. There was a lot of information that could have easily been inferred through dialogue that Armstrong somehow felt was better put in page-long-paragraph exposition.

We all know how I feel about page long paragraphs. Don't use them, please. It only makes your work harder for your readers to follow.

As for the story, it was simple and a little flat. The main character, Elena, was supposed to have deep character flaws rooted in an unfortunate childhood, but almost none of those flaws played out in the story. The main bulk of the novel was focused on the relationship between Clay and Elena, and even after so many pages devoted to the two of them I couldn't bring myself to care what happened.

The novel poses some intriguing ideas about werewolves and their living in the real world, but for me there simply wasn't enough done with it.

The only character I found myself liking was one who was kept offscreen the entire time before being found dead. I won't tell you who that was, in case you decide to read it after all.

I know I'm probably going to get a lot of grief for bashing this book so much, but I honestly can't see why this story appeals to so many people. It had a lot of potential, but Armstrong simply neglected to see any of it through.

That and her constant use of the word "normalcy", which I still insist is not an actual word.

Now, in all fairness, this book is supposed to be an opener to Elena's story, so there was a lot of information that needed to be given, however, Armstrong didn't use her words so neatly. She has tendency to use twenty words where she could've used four, and I noticed after a while that I could skip whole segments of backstory and still completely understand what was going on.

Like I've said in my posts before, if your reader can figure out the backstory without you having to give it to them, it's best not to give it at all. Backstory is often better information for the writer to know and imply and for the reader to infer.

All in all, I would give this novel one out of five stars, even though I was hoping to no end that I would find a way to like it. Armstrong, I'll likely never read you again.

[love]

{RD}

Grow Up

Friday's quote series returns! ...because, as you well know, it's Friday.

Today I'll be discussing one of my favorite Gaiman quotes:

Authors are not grown ups. I'm not sure where the misconception came from, that authors are actually adult people, because really, we're not.

And I'll tell you why!

Most adults have the imagination beaten out of them with the back cover of a textbook by the time they're out of college. High school teachers and college professors batter us all into writing the same, thinking the same, and not being creative. So by the time most people reach adulthood, they've lost all semblance of creativity and have much more difficulty writing. (I have too much fun with my hyperbole, don't I?)

But.

Those of us who survive college with our creative genes intact are usually (you guessed it) not highly considered "adults". Oh, we're good people, many of us. We know our stuff, and we'll talk you're ear off.

But we're also those crazy silly whack-a-doodles who no one in their right mind would ever consider to be a "grown up".

So really, Mr. Gaiman here is very right.

You want to be an author?

Then don't grow up. Retain your imagination, think outside the box, believe in the humanly impossible, and write to your heart's content.

[love]

{Rani}

p.s. Don't forget! My good friend Deanna will be featured in this series very soon! Keep your eyes peeled for more news on that front. I'll likely bring in a few more guest writers in the coming months, so don't forget to check back in and do so often!

привет

Well.

As some of you know, yesterday was my birthday. It was a fabulous day of fun and eating and Russian lessons.

Yes, you heard me right. Russian lessons.

It's the first of a few foreign languages that I want to learn, and it's also the hardest. I figured if I started with the most difficult, I could work my way down.

But, as most of you well know, learning Russian takes a lot of time.

This means it'll take time out of my day, time that I used to spend working or writing, or talking to all of you. :-(

I'll still do my best to post often and respond to your messages within a day at the most, don't worry. I'm actually hoping to up my posting and start doing upwards of two or three times per day (including my usual three blog posts a week), so you'll likely be hearing more of me. I may even start posting Russian words of the week, if that would interest any of you.

I know, I know, we're a mostly English-based community, but who says we can't bring in some other languages to make things more interesting?

Who knows, maybe you'll all end up learning Russian right alongside me. *wink*

[love]

{Rani}

Wireforks

Warning: the post was entirely inspired by watching the fireworks. I'm not sure why I'm warning you about this.

Explosions are one of those things that you really don't want to write in a hurry. 

Why?

Because they usually happen so fast that we don't get to experience them long enough to really know what's going on.

So when you're writing an explosion, it's better to take your time with it. You want to really feel it out, to show us every facet of that explosion and how it affects your characters.

Of course, this is only for explosions that are directly related to your narrative. Minor explosions that don't make a difference to anything can be exploded in high speed as with all normal everyday explosions. (...when an explosion becomes commonplace, you know you watch too much Mythbusters)

My suggestions are to ask yourselves questions like...

What does the character involved hear? 

A boom, yes, but what before that? Do they hear crickets? Birds? Is there a ringing in their ears afterward? How do they feel about this? Does this disorient them, and if so, how disoriented are they?

What do they smell? 

Singed hair, smoke, chemicals, etc. If your character is brainy you'll want to know some scientific terminology for those smells.

What affect will this explosion have on what your character is trying to do? 

Were they trying to go somewhere when it happened? Were they expecting the boom? For that matter, did they cause it?

You'll want to consider things on both the inside and the outside, external interests and internal ones. It's the best way to make your explosion more real, by making your readers feel as though they've been through it themselves.


Boom goes the dynamite.

[love]

{RD}

Soul Bearers

Welcome back to our Friday series! Quotes quotes quotes galore!

That's the best name I've been able to come up with. I trust you won't judge me.

I have no idea who said this, but whoever said it is brilliant. Why? Well I'll tell you why.

See, writing isn't just something that you do, in my opinion. Writing is a part of you, it's a very significant chunk of who you are, of your very heart. So when you write, you're not just writing down whatever words you happen to think of: you're giving out a little piece of yourself.

This is also the only way I'm able to explain why people frequently don't finish their works, or refuse to share them with the public:

They're a piece of who we are, and it's hard to show that to the world.

I can't even count the number of people I know who have stories inside them, people who want to write those stories down but can't bring themselves to do it.

And still there are people who have written the work, who've shown that they have promise and talent when it comes to the act of writing, but sharing their work with anyone is beyond their capability.

It can be debilitating, to be sure. I had a difficult time sharing this part of me with anyone for quite a long time, but as soon as I did, let me tell you now, it was the biggest release I've ever felt.

In truth, these pieces of us, these parts of our souls that we bear upon the page, are the parts that want to be seen by the world. They're the pieces that are begging to be let out in the open, that want more than anything to be read by someone, anyone, as long as it isn't you, the writer.

Why?

Because it's your work, and you already know what it says.

Writing it down is the first step. Letting it out, sharing it with the world, is the next and hardest thing to do.

But believe me, when you do it, when you're able to let that little piece of you go and be free, you'll truly know what it is to be a writer, and what it is to live this life of creativity.

You're going to love it.

[love]

{RD}

Oh, Essays...

Looky here, I got another request for a blog post!

Today we're talking about essays, and how to get them started. I know, they're a pain a lot of the time, but we all have to write them at some point (or had to, depending on your education status).

My best advice to you is to never start in the beginning.

Here's my method for writing essays (and yes, I was very good at writing essays ;-P):

1. Write down all the things you know about your topic.

No, that doesn't mean write an outline. In fact, I highly discourage outlines, because they severely limit what you can do with your essay. Start out by seeing what you have, what data you can find, and what knowledge you already have in your noggin.

2. Organize those ideas, coupling together those that play off each other.

No, that doesn't mean write an outline. ;-)
Based off the information from step 1, you now know what you have the most data on and can write the best argument for (assuming you're writing an argument, as this is what most teachers these days are looking for in solid essays).

After this, we'll get into the meat of the matter.

3. Start in the middle.

Never write your intro first. I almost always recommend writing the intro after you've written the main bulk of your data, so you can customize your intro to match what you've already written.

Many teachers will tell you that this is a bad idea, but I can't even tell you how many essays I wrote in high school where I ended up rewriting the entire intro paragraph because it didn't match the rest of anything that I'd written. 

4. Once you've finished the body of the essay, write the intro.

I think I've already covered that fairly neatly... 

5. After you've written the intro, write the conclusion.

Yes, I do generally save the conclusion for last. I do this because generally the conclusion is the same thing as the intro, just with more answers and less questions. So once you have your intro in place, writing the "outro" is simple enough to do.


I know, it's a little convoluted and sometimes hard to follow, but it's the best advice I have.

I do not, however, recommend writing like this when you're working with short stories or novels. In those, you generally want to start with the beginning and end with the end.

I hope that this helps! If you have any more questions on my method, let me know and I'll answer your question or write another blog to elaborate.

[love]

{Ardy... get it?}