January Book List

February 7, 2011 By Courtney Leave a Comment

 Guess the fact I’ve had my nose stuck in one book or another, the result  from accepting the challenge from Facebook - Random House Inc to read five books a month for a year has meant a lack of blog posts. Opps.  Being the book worm that I am, and despite my misgivings, I also added new twist to the goal – why make it easy on myself?! I want to use this challenge to take some time to read outside of my usual comfort zone. Generally I am pulled to what is (depending upon the company you keep) called either sneeringly called ‘chick lit’ or contemporary women’s literature.  So this month I added a mystery novel into the mix, just to see how authors approach other genres. 

I decided to read a mystery by Phil Rickman based solely on a review I read about ‘Merrily Watkins’, the central character of the series and I was not disappointed. Actually, I loved the book so much I have read another of the series already this month and have ordered a couple more from the library. Who would have though I could end up enjoying mystery novels?  It was a trip down secondary school memory lane that lead me to read Playing Beatie Bow in honour of Ruth Park, who died late last year.  I wanted to see if her book stood the test of time.  And whilst it wasn’t as brilliant as I remembered it, I still love the idea of being lost in history and how that affects the future and the way timelines can blend together.

I think the only book I felt was formulaic and a touch trite was the last one I read by Carly Phillips. It may have felt pedestrian because I have read so many versions of this style of novel (let the sneering begin – chick lit!), not necessarily because it was badly written.  As a reader I didn’t understand the choice of artwork on the front cover of House Rules - it didn’t respond to the story within the cover at all.  I always enjoy a novel by Nora Roberts, and this is a good stand alone read if you don’t want to get suckered into one of her series.  My favourite novel of the month was Mothers and Other Liars, but that had such a profound effect upon my heart that I believe it best to save that for another post. Finally, I have been slowly working my way through the whole Harry Potter series since last year, fully reveling in the ‘magic’ of J.K.’s writing style. Although I feel duty bound to admit that I read this on my beloved Sony e-reader and I didnt hold the ink infused paper bound book from the library!

In the end, I must confess that I am somewhat shocked that I managed to read ten novels in the course of one month. Perhaps I am/was still, despite my non-television watching habits during the daytime, wasting much too much time. Whatever the truth, I am eager to see how many books I can enjoy in the month of February.

  

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Random House Inc Book Challenge, The Complete Collection

You Wouldnt Read About It…..

January 12, 2011 By Courtney 2 Comments

 

I can finally say I have read Stephen King’s “On Writing”. Having heard how great it was, I  patiently waited until all 70+ people ahead of me on the ‘holds’ list at the library read it. It was worth the wait. It’s a brilliant book reminding people who love to scribble stories down that writing is an organic process that has to be continually developed for the gift to be honed and polished.  King suggests that people who love to write should also be readers that should read – a lot.  I must confess that I have already returned the book before my three allotted weeks with it were up, sure  as I was that there was another long line waiting for it to make its way to them via the ‘holds’ list. So I can’t tell you exactly how many books Mr. King reads in a year, but if he insists that we should write and read for 4 to 6 hours a day, rest assured, it’s a lot of books!

Facebook can be a dangerous thing.  As a writer wannabe I have of course, got several publishing companies and authors on my facebook list and read their updates with varying degrees of interest. This challenge grabbed my attention.

Random House, Inc
• Our New Year resolution for 2011 is to read at least 5 books a month. How many books do you go through in an average month?
Was it even possible for a busy person to read five books a month I wondered silently to myself? I kept a record of the books I had read in 2009 and was pleasantly surprised that I had read something like 40 books. In fact, I thought that was a pretty impressive total.  Until I read the 25 comments left behind by other ‘fans’ of the page. Sixteen people claim to read anything from a book a week to a staggering four books a week.

Seriously, where do they get the time to do such heavy duty reading? Maybe these prolific readers aren’t writers I thought.  Maybe they don’t have anyone at home sucking up all their spare time with ridiculous demands such as being fed, clothed, being afforded an education,  kept healthy and safe, taken to the park to play and in general to be loved. Maybe they don’t have any pets, partners or children at all. And yet the words of Stephen King keep going through my mind. Want to be a good writer? Be a good reader.

One of the best parts of the weekly routine that Bronwen and I share is going to the library truck every Friday morning to (occasionally mournfully) return the previous week’s books and stagger back home with a new load of picture books and novels to read. I love looking along the spines of the books, reading blurbs and wishing I had more me time and less demands from the mundane so that I could read without interruption.  There are probably more books on my wish list than any normal person might expect to get through in a lifetime – and the list keeps growing with each New Year.

I have accepted the challenge from the Random House, Inc page as something to achieve this year. I am going to attempt to read five or more books each month…. 60 books in a year. As a personal challenge, I am also going to try and read some books outside of my normally favoured genres.
 
So here is the list I have read for January – so far.

Playing Beatie Bow – Ruth Park
On Writing – Stephen King
The Smile of a Ghost – Phil Rickman
The Three Weissmanns of Westport – Cathleen Schine

If I get really good at this reading, writing blogging gig, I might even attempt to throw in a few book reviews too.

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Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection, Writers & Publishers

Bread Dough Novelist

December 4, 2010 By Courtney 1 Comment

 

There is something soothing to the soul when it comes to making bread. No, I’m not talking about throwing ingredients together into the bread maker and three and half hours later coming out with a brick of bread that has a weird paddle shaped hole in the bottom end that always seems to taste like yeast. I’m talking about putting the flour, yeast, salt and water together in a bowl, mixing, kneading, giving time to rise, punching down and rising again. I’m talking about taking the dough, cutting it into long strands, forming a pleasing and practical braided shape and letting it rise once more and then putting it into the oven on a pizza stone and letting the whole house smell delicious as it bakes in the steamy heat.  I’m talking about really making bread.

I used to be very scared of trying to bake with yeast. I had a disaster when I was eight or so (us foodies start early!) with hot cross buns and decided then and there that yeast baking was not for me; until this year. When I got thoroughly sick to death of reading all the preservatives and additives to what should essentially be a very basic food item.  It has taken time to learn to bake a good loaf of bread. My first attempts were a little, shall we say – flat? But now? Now when I make bread people think I have bought it at a very exclusive bakery. People ask, ‘where did you get this….? It’s so gooooood,’ and then I tell them that I baked it myself.  It’s a satisfying thing to watch people gobble down my bread, sighing with contentment as they munch away.

Just like it’s a satisfying thing to put a novel together. It starts with separate ingredients, character sketches and possible plot lines and then adding the all important yeasty question of “what if….?”  Melding it all together, giving the yeast time to work through the ingredients so that it becomes soft pliable dough.  I’ve been working on my novel since February 2009. It’s at the point in which I take the dough and shape it together for the final editorial rise before baking.  And it was as I was cutting the characters story lines apart into rolls to braid into a bread shape that I discovered that there wasn’t enough dough in one of the rolls; that two characters had plenty of drama and personal development, but one of them fell flat.

A year of baking bread every second day or so has taught me very well how to eyeball the orb of dough and cut it out into the right measurements. But seeing this is the first novel I’ve ever written, I’m guessing that such a mistake in creating equal story lengths is inevitable. So basically I have had to roll all the dough of my novel together and start all over again. 

But here is the exciting part. The new storyline that I’ve created for the weakest character is full of angst, personal growth and unexpected twists. I love the story as I write it down. It’s flowing free and fast from my mind, making the whole remixing and cutting as painless as such extra work can be.

The truth of the matter is that the  timetable I had for having a book ready to be sent out to publishers by the end of the year has to be thrown out of the window.  I may have a draft ready for some trusted friends to read by the end of February next year.  Good things take time. Good things are made from simple ingredients and feed not just the body, but the soul. And so it’s OK with me. Because in the end, I want my novel to be as beautiful as one of my loaves of bread – and just as satisfying.

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Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection

A tenth of the $60 million woman….

November 30, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

I’ve read plenty of her books, although admittedly none of her PJ. Hobbs books, because they tend to be written as a series and I’m not sure I want to be suckered into a police mystery series at this point of my life. Something to look forward to when life slows down a bit eh?

Nora Roberts.

One of the most successfully prolific writers of our times does not get the respect she deserves in my opinion because she writes romance novels.  Which, I’ll have you know, is one of the publishing industries best areas of money making success, along with cook books. Because even in times of economic hardship, there is always the desire for people to find a new romance author to enjoy or a new cook book with gloriously detailed ‘food porn’ photography to sigh over.

Any writer selling 10 million books a year, who Forbes magazine estimated with a gross annual income (in 2004) as $60 million is a writer doing it right. 

When people ask what kind of writing career I would like, I’ve often said that I would like to become as successful as Nora Roberts.  But until I read this article I had no idea of just how successful she was. I knew about the speed in which she churns out books. The woman is incredibly dedicated to her writing work, often spending eight to ten hours a day writing, although I also know that when her children where younger, she couldn’t put that much work time in.

But golly, even a tenth of her success would be enough for me……

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Filed Under: The Complete Collection, Writers & Publishers

NaNoWriMo 2010 begins….. now!

November 1, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

 

NaNoWriMo happens this month (today peoples!), and I’m still debating in my morning pages whether I want to take part in it or not. Perhaps I should have gotten that out of my system a few weeks ago? The idea of having 50,000 words written towards a novel by the end of the month is intoxicating. But the reality of having to commit to writing 1667 words every.single.day scares the heck out of me.

And I’m not sure why. Last year as I was working on the draft of my first novel I was able to get to a point where I could write 1000 words every day.  Now granted, when I first started writing my story, I wrote little blocks of five or six hundred words once or twice a week and that was an achievement.  But by the end of the year I was powering on through. So why am I so worried that the old skills won’t come back?  And why am I panicking at the idea of committing to the NaNoWriMo?

Whilst pondering the fears that surround that thought I thought I would instead ponder the word whilst which is an oft neglected word in our language usage today, but really shouldn’t be. Could I write a story about the word whilst I wonder?

But whilst I was researching (yes, thats a good word for it)  what was happening in the publishing world via one of the many newspapers I read I came across Maeve Binchy’s method of getting her work done. Write four pages and read for an hour.  Maybe I should think of a similar idea for myself? Write the 1667 words a day and….. I draw a blank. Any suggestions?

But enough procrastination. I must make sure my daughter doesn’t drown her rubber duckies in the bath, get her into bed and then start writing. I’ve got 1667 words to pull out of my head.

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Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection, Writers & Publishers

Jane Austen and why correct spelling is over-rated

October 28, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

Bwahahahhahaaaaaaa.

Sorry. I really should stop laughing… but… *wheeeeeeeze* …. I just cant……

Its big news that Jane Austen was a bad speller?

After years of wondering what the intensely private woman guarded by an intensely devoted sister determined to keep Janes reputation pure  was really like, after years of  hoping for a glimpse  behind the curtain so to speak, this is what you share with us?

Kathryn Sutherland, an English professor at Oxford University, examined 1,100 handwritten pages of unpublished works by the writer of Pride and Prejudice, who died in 1817. She says the manuscripts have plenty of “blots, crossings out, messiness,” and that Austen “broke most of the rules for writing good English.”   www.cbc.ca

She had blots, crossings out and messiness?  Incomprehensible.

For a writer creating a story with nothing more than the words in her head. Writing with a pot of ink and a feather, on cheap, poorly produced paper, without the aid of a first class education.   Its big news that when her brother  Henry wrote glowing reports of her writing abilities after she died…  he might have been fudging the truth a little? Really?

It’s just so hard to imagine how someone with no spelling ability could write such incredible stories and spur on 100′s of other people (myself included) to write stories based however loosely from her ideas….. Thank goodness for editors like William Gifford is all I can say.  Imagine life in a world without Jane Austen.

Look here for the website for the Jane Austen Fiction Manuscripts that reveals to the world the real workings of a writer before the advent of computers and typing programs…. it really is fascinating to the Austen fan.

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Filed Under: Everything Austen II, Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection

A Dark Horse in the Scotiabank Giller Awards

October 5, 2010 By Courtney 1 Comment

 

Oooooooh I love to back me a dark horse in a race.

Actually, I’m more likely to go for the under-dog, but who cares what the animal is…. this has got to be good news for the publishing industry and all wannabe writers like myself.

Three of the Scotiabank Giller Prize  nominees are books published by small print presses.

“Dark horses were the order of the day, as three of the five shortlisted books were published by small houses: a debut short story collection by Alexander MacLeod, Light Lifting, published by Biblioasis in Windsor, Ont.; Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists, courtesy of Gaspereau Press in Kentville, N.S.; and Kathleen Winter’s Annabel, published by Toronto’s Anansi. It was the first novel for both Skibsrud and Winter.

A fourth nominee, Sarah Selecky, was also nominated for a debut short story collection, This Cake is for the Party, issued by Thomas Allen. That left David Bergen as the veteran of the field. Bergen, who won in 2005 for The Time in Between and was longlisted in 2008 for The Retreat, is back in the running with The Matter with Morris, published by HarperCollins.”  As taken from TheStar.com

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is for Canadian writers who have written books in English (or translations) that were published the previous year. The winner of the award gets a $50,000 prize and the others on the short-list get $5000.

So often when you are researching how to become published, you discover how very few books small publishing houses produce now days. And it seems that its regular news to hear another smaller publishing house is going out of business because there is no money in paper books anymore, and that  even if you have written a new and revolutionary story arc that’s never been written before, the chances of ever being published are (to coin an Australian colloquial term) Buckleys and Nunn. But here isthe  proof that small houses do print stories that are considered prize worthy. They do take a risk on unpublished authors writing unusual story arcs and short stories and thankfully it would appear that the risk pays off.

The winner will be announced November 9th, 2010.

Other news reports:

The Globe and Mail                               CBC news                           National Post

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Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection, Writers & Publishers

Geek Dad – Book Review

September 28, 2010 By Courtney 1 Comment

I’m a geek.

There. I said it.

I am.  I have a yearly pass to the Art Gallery.  I think it’s cool to a book store or the library and take an hour to pick a new book to read.  I’ve taught myself to embroider though the step by step picture guidance of how to books.  I get excited when I find new foodie haunts. I will happily go through every single page of your photo album of your world trip and thrill at each story you tell.  I’m the artistic kind of geek.

But I wasn’t the kind of geek that was able to make the most out of the ideas from the book “Geek Dad – Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share”    I think it may be that it’s a quirk of genetics than anything else. But hold your horses. Just because the book wasn’t a perfect fit for me doesn’t mean I’m going to write a negative review.

Ken Denmead has produced a book that bends creative ideas so that they become truly twisted – and what kid doesn’t enjoy that from their parents?

This book has been entertaining reading and has certainly challenged me to think of new activities to do with my girl child, and for that alone, the book gets a brownie point.  It is written in an lively, engaging manner and it certainly made me laugh out aloud. It isn’t difficult to imagine a truly geeky parent getting very excited and investing time over the projects in this book.

I was first drawn to the activity of creating my very own colouring book for Bronwen who has a rather artist bent of character. But I confess that I couldn’t work my way through the instructions, as logically as they appear to be written. Take it to be a personality flaw within me; ask me to read anything vaguely related to technical jargon and my eyes glaze over and my brain slows to the speed of molasses on a winter day in Ottawa.  Suffice to say, the idea will have to remain as such until a tech geek can help explain the ‘techno-babble’.

As a confirmed foodie with a daughter who occasionally enjoys playing with Lego blocks the next activity I attempted from this book was creating a model building out of cake.  What’s not to love in that twisted idea?  Of course, I didn’t attempt to recreate the Eiffel tower (maybe that’s where I went wrong?), but creating a 1960’s concrete tower with Bronwen was fun. One point that Denmead neglected to mention was how incredibly easy clean up of cake crumbs and icing splotches are when you are the proud owner of not one, but two daschund dogs. An important omission you would agree.

One issue I would have with book is that it is touted as being a low cost book of fun. However, spending $25 to over $100 to complete some of the projects did not sit well with a parent living on a single wage.   Even $25 can be a lot for a family to spare and unless you are friends with similarly minded geeks, borrowing tools and equipment really isn’t an option.  But it’s my only quibble.

Don’t let the name of the book “Geek Dad” and the obvious gender bias of this book turn you away. If you have a techno speaking, ‘eyes light up at the idea of going to a tech store’ person in your life who enjoys playing with the kids…. then unreservedly I would say this is the book for you!

This book was sent to me by Jessica Chun from the Penguin group to review.

Geek Dad: Awesome Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share
Gotham paperback original 2010
Pages: 222
ISBN- 9781592405527
Language: English

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, The Complete Collection

Whooooshing and Writing a Sex Scene

September 9, 2010 By Courtney 3 Comments

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh!

 
Did you hear that?

It was the sound of a (self imposed) deadline rushing by. Look at that. It’s September 9th and I haven’t finished editing my novel. Damn. First time I haven’t met my deadline and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t feel good. So now it’s time to apply the thumb screws. Feel free to email me that you twisting the bolt one more turn as you see fit.

Onto other writing updates.

I really prefer it when the critique group I’m part of reads my first drafts and ticks each sentence with red ink as all perfectly formed. “Yeah! I got it right. I’m a writer!” I think to myself with exclamation points!   Last meeting I went to they read my new scenes and worked them over but good. “I suck at this. I can’t write for nuts!” is the thought running through my head.  But the killer came when every single member of the group (all women) all agreed on One. Vital. Point. during my hour long torture fest.

I have to follow up a wedding scene with the wedding night sex scene.

Of course, just thinking about such a topic tends to get me giggling or blushing, or worse, saying terribly suggestively inappropriate things to people. Keep in mind that I was writing the piece last night, so today as I was working out with my friend at the gym, I kept bursting into laughter as she tried to get me to focus on different body movements.  Most of the time she was the innocent party.

Within the blog Kinda Sassy I’ve written about the erotic writing course that I went to. But doing a course and writing a sex scene before the next critique meeting , during which one particularly cheeky member insists I need to read my work out aloud (yeah right-that’ll nevah happen!)  has really done a number in my head.  How on earth do you get into a mental head space to write romantic erotica? Isn’t it terribly hard to get to a point of sitting down and writing racy stuff?  I mean, I’ve managed to write a couple of errotic-ish paragraphs for another section of the story… but this scene….?  Repeat after me… Gaaaaah.

With the deadline for the next group staring me in the face (Wednesday!)I started working it (small snicker) last night. It took two attempts at starting the piece before I began to actually get into the head space of writing the scene. And I discovered that there is one thing that Opal Carew never explained in her workshop; how clinically technical you have to be when you are writing a sex scene.  Oh sure, it’s easy to image the scene, to get lost in the fantasy of it (oooh la la), but then as a writer you have to pull yourself up and start to think through each and every movement.  You have to describe every sensation of the senses with the action. It’s exhausting, not to mention the work involved in thinking about terms of endearment other than ‘throbbing manhood’. 

I cannot believe that I just wrote ‘throbbing manhood’ on my blog. Because seriously, who was the first person who thought that was a good way to describe a particularly arousing bodily function?  On that note, I think I will go and watch some Vuelta a Espana – get my fix of cycling and boys in lycra. Oh! How easy that was…?  I’m right back to the erotic head space.

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Filed Under: The Complete Collection

Editing- pushing boulders uphill

August 24, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

There are times when writing comes so easily to me its breath taking. I sit down at the desk, only to rise up again a few hours later with a couple of thousand words written. The next day I sit down and again the words flow like water down a fast moving stream gliding over river stones.  And when I go back over my work several days later, I realise with a strange sort of pride, that all that flowing was really pretty good.
And then there are times – like right now – when writing and editing a novel feels like the hardest thing ever I have ever done – and I’ve given birth!  This past week it has felt like I have been pushing boulders uphill only to get close to the summit, stub my toe, loose my grip and watch the boulder roll back to the bottom of the ravine where I know I have to start all over again. Cue much frustration.
This edit has been agonisingly slow work. I’ve read every word written and tried to justify its existence in the final product. Except that I don’t want to read my own work.  And my inability to concentrate the past week has only added to my frustration. And I keep thinking, why can’t I concentrate? I think it’s because I’m having oh look… there’s a fluffy cloud shaped like a teddy bear…..
I have a writing group meeting this Wednesday; maybe dealing with four people critiquing my work will pull my head back into line. I have the deadline of September 1st as to when I hoped to have this edit finished.  When the work should be complete enough to give to a few trusted friends to read and give first opinions at the very least.  And if you don’t have a mathematical mind that worked it out in a nano-second, September 1st is eight days away.

Eight. Days. People. 

Currently I’m working through page 133 of a 177 page manuscript. Sounds like I’m close, right? What am I belly-aching about, right?  So now is where I confess that there are several scenes that need re-working or just waiting to be written for the first time. There are a few timeline mix ups that I need to sort out. In fact, the more I edit, the more convinced I become that my novel is pure gobblty-gook.  The Itty Bitty S(h)itty Committee in my head have been raising their objections (loudly) for the last few weeks too. Telling me that I’m wasting my time, that this novel will end up stuffed under the bed keeping only the dust bunnies entertained, and wondering at the absurdity of my belief that I could ever be a writer.
So whats a girl to do when she hits the wall and can’t bear to look at her own manuscript any longer? She writes a blog post of course.  And now that that’s done, I really have no excuse. So please, feel free to entertain yourselves for a while as I go back to my work and push on for September 1st.

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Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection