Author Review

Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors.  If you haven’t read him I highly recommend him.  He sold his first story when he was thirteen years old. Thirteen!  What was I doing when I was thirteen?  Oh yea, nothing.  He has written at least 38 novels, most of which are fantasy and take place in a mythical world called Discworld.  In 1990 he co-authored the book Good Omens with Neil Gaiman. 

Pratchett is a satirical author and has a dry, British, sense of humor.  Even better, he has an understanding of words that takes my breath away.  Sometimes I come across a turn of phrase or a character description and my jaw will drop with the beauty, simplicity and accuracy of his words.  He makes it look effortless.  His characters are fun, multidimensional and entertaining and I consider many of them my friends. 

I haven’t yet read all of his books and I haven’t read them in order but each one is a delight.  If you haven’t read any of his books I suggest you start immediately.  I recommend starting with his YA series. 

Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

The Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

This series details the adventures of Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles who are blue, Scottish, and only six inches high.  They are some of my favorite literary characters and Truck Boy is going to be one for Halloween.  (What?  A pirate you say?  I’m sorry son you don’t get to decide) If you have read this series but haven’t listened to it on audio you should.  The reading of the Nac Mac Feegles is superb.  I was listening to A Hat Full of Sky and almost drove off the road.  Twice.  I was laughing so hard I was crying and couldn’t see the road.  I had to take it out of the car and just listen to it at home.  I’m giggling right now just thinking about it.

Some of my other favorite books are Making Money, Night Watch, and Nation.  Nation is not a Discworld book but a standalone novel that, while a little darker than his other novels, was most excellent.  If you want a good book about Christmas read The Hogfather, and in Soul Music Death joins the foreign legion.  (last Halloween The Engineer went as Death and Truck Boy went as the Death of Rats.) 

I guess I should stop now as this post is quite long.  I hope that I have been able to introduce you to a new author and that you enjoy him. 

Making Sense of Life

Nathan Bransford had a post that I knew I had to read just because of the title, Stories Are How We Make Sense of Life.   It’s true.  I think most of you as writers use your writing as a way to process what you see, think, or feel.  Am I the only one like that?

In one paragraph Nathan says   Life is too complicated to hold in your head and relationships are too immense and multi-faceted to easily comprehend. So we write and tell stories to make sense of our relationships and existence.

Not too long ago I used writing to get over my anger at someone who had hurt me.  These feelings had existed between me and the person for over a year and I was tired of being angry, guilty, hurt and sad.  I had tried to get over my feelings for some time but hadn’t been able to.  Until I sat down and wrote everything out, what I felt, why I felt that way, what I was sorry about, how she was a mean nasty person and how she was a wonderful caring person.  After about five pages I was able to close the notebook and start fresh in our relationship.  I’ve never gone back to read what I wrote.  I don’t remember most of it, but along with the ink I bled my emotions onto the paper.  They were too much to handle but getting them out helped me to move on.   

Some of you know that Truck Boy is adopted.  He came into our family after eight years of infertility treatments and three years trying to adopt.  I wrote out a lot of my sorrow during those years and I think that is the only reason I managed to stay so well adjusted.  I use that term loosely.  (we are trying to adopt again if anyone knows of a child who needs a home.  We’re nice people I promise.)

Anyway, my point is that I agree with Nathan, life is complicated and writing helps me deal with it. It is not the only thing that helps, but it is an important part. Not everything I write to make sense of life goes into stories.  Not all the stories I write are about what I personally am dealing with. But dealing with the emotions in my writing helps me focus and understand my own.   How about you?

FYI there are some pretty interesting discussions in the comments section of Nathan's post if you want some weekend reading or need some way to procrastinate writing.

Define Yourself

I don’t know if any of you follow Amanda Hocking’s blog, if not I encourage you to take a look.  It’s a fun blog and she has a great voice, her personality really shows through.  Anyway, on a blog post a little bit ago she said this,

When I was in high school, I got really sad about the idea of being a writer. I mean, I wanted to be a writer, but everything I knew about writers made them seem boring and stodgy, or they were older men and alcoholics and depressed. I didn't want to be any of those things. I wanted to have fun and be silly, like a rock star.

But now that I'm older, I realize I can be whatever writer I want to be. That's an important truth. Or at least is to me. You live your life on your terms. Don't let anybody else's definitions rule you. Define yourself.

I really liked the last paragraph.  I’m sure many of us had preconceived notions of what an author is or should be.  We see “rules” all the time of how to be, or not be, an author.  But part of writing is finding your voice and that involves letting who you are shine through, or at least who you want to be. 

Be who you want to be, write what you want to write and don’t let anyone else’s definitions rule you.

I'm Back

I’m finally back from vacation, the car is unpacked though the suitcases aren’t.  Why do that when I could be on the computer?  I learned a few things on vacation.

I am addicted to the computer/internet.  No really.  Can’t. Get. Enough.

We had hamburgers 8 times in two weeks.  I don’t ever want to see another one.

I didn’t realize it until I took a break but I have been so wrapped up in my WIP I haven’t been seeing things.  After letting my mind lie fallow I started seeing stories in everything around me again.  I missed that.  

Letting my mind wander also gave me some great surprise insights into my WIP.  They just popped up out of nowhere.

IT was so much fun  to see Truck boy play with all his cousins.  I wish we lived closer to them.  

The humidity is killing me.  It only took two weeks in the west to undo five years of living in Georgia.  Which only proves my husband’s point, you really can’t get used to humidity.

I loved our vacation.  Even driving 2000 miles in three days (twice) wasn’t so bad, but I’m glad to be home.

I’ll have a proper writerly post on Wednesday, and I plan to spend some time catching up on blogs.  I missed everyone.  Hope you all have a good Monday.

Oops

Sorry on my last post the word This was supposed to be a link.  I think it's working now but just in case it's not here is the link proper.
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/house-of-shelves.html

Thanks

House of Shelves

This caught my eye for obviouse reasons.  Look at all the shelves!  Though the house is only 557 square feet it can support 10 tons of books!  It may not be a great house for my two year old, but there is a part of me that really likes the minimilist approach to living the Japanese have.

Sell out for Cell Phones

I just got my first cell phone.  Actually I’m taking over my brother’s account on a cell phone he doesn’t use and doesn’t want to pay for.  I’ve resisted getting one for a long time.  I don’t like talking on the phone and they became more and more popular and it was EXPECTED that everyone should have one I, being contrary like I am, refused to do what was expected.  It seemed as if too many people were run by their phones.  But there have been just enough situations where I thought, hmmm, a cellphone would be convenient right now, and I gave in.  While getting it all transferred from my brother to me has been a pain that made me want to go back to phoneless communication, I have decided that it’s ok to own a cell phone.  I don’t have to like talking on the phone, this isn’t going to change that, but it will be there when I need.  It is going to serve my purpose, not the other way around. 

There are a lot of rules and advice about writing.  Anyone trying to get published is inundated and often terrified of the things we have to be aware of.  But like my new phone those rules are here to serve us, not the other way around.  Not every manuscript has to follow all the advice all the time.  The info is there when we need it to help solve a problem with our writing. I’m going to make the knowledge work for me.   However if I want the knowledge to be there when I need it, I have to start looking for it now.  I can’t wait until I break down then get the phone.