Category: books

My July Reads

Since it’s summer and I’m trying to fit in a little more aimless wandering, I haven’t been showing up here as often as I normally do. I’m trying to post every couple of weeks until September when I’ll go back to weekly updates. The fall promises to be busy with a few exciting new projects. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the sunshine, the garden and time to read. Here’s what I’m dipping into this month:

On the Kindle: The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Beside the bed: Option B, Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg

At the Gym: The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar

Books read to date in 2017: 40

My June Reads

It’s been a ‘bookish’ few weeks around here as the Graduate packed up and moved into his own space. Change is exciting, though the process of integrating change can be a messy one. And things did get chaotic as we helped him sort and toss and pack and schlepp his belongings across town to his new place. We sorted through a lot of books. A LOT of books. It was like a snapshot of his growing up years as we paged through picture books, early readers, teen novels and his more recent adult reads, including a number of educational textbooks.

At the same time, I accepted an assignment to write an article on almonds. Since I have to develop a healthy recipe using raw almonds, I gravitated to my large cookbook collection. I lost several hours and took another trip down memory lane flipping through vegan and vegetarian cookbooks purchased on trips over the years. Each book was a reminder of a country we once visited and a stage of life now gone – a time before we had our kids when vegetarianism, at least at home, was viewed with skepticism and veganism was barely understood.

Times change. Kids grow up and move on. Vegan dishes are on just about every restaurant menu these days. But books?  Books – electronic or paper, fiction or non-fiction – remain pretty much the same; they’re still informing, still entertaining and still providing some much needed escape. Here’s what I’m reading this month:

At the gym: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

On the Kindle: The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain

Before bed: The Dogs by Allan Stratton

Books read to date in 2017: 35

We’re Celebrating!

 

If you’re in Victoria this Wednesday, June 7th, please join us at Munro’s Books where a group of us will be launching our spring releases. I’ll be talking about my latest book, In Plain Sight. It’ll be a fun evening. I hope to see you there!

Overheard This Week

“I hope you guys are in school because this really isn’t the kind of career type job I like to see people in.”

So said a customer at the local bottle depot where my son, now known as the Graduate (AKA Teen Freud or The Basement Dweller), has worked part-time sorting and stacking bottles since he was in high school. Amazingly (and I use that word deliberately because he’s not known at home for his diplomacy) the Graduate  smiled, nodded politely and waited for the woman to take her bejewelled self back to her Mercedes before letting loose with a rant to his co-workers about judgement and expectations and class systems.

With his undergrad degree freshly in hand, the Graduate will likely make a job switch at some point over the coming months. But so what if he doesn’t? What if he decides he wants to stay where he is or open a bottle depot of his own? What if he was like a former co-worker who chose the job because he was a photographer (his passion) during off hours but the bottle depot provided a steady salary? Or his single mother co-workers who find the work, though dirty and often unpleasant, reliable and well-paying, especially for a job that doesn’t require post-secondary education.

Why do the jobs we do, the Graduate asked, inspire so much judgement? Why indeed.

That got me thinking about some of the jobs I assign my fictional characters. The mother character in In Plain Sight is an artist and predictably absentminded when she’s lost in her painting. The father is a terrorist and in jail so I went out of the box there. But in The Art of Getting Stared At, the main character’s parents are a doctor, an airline pilot, and a model respectively. In Girls Who Dish, my latest Laura Tobias title, the main characters are a restaurant owner and a lawyer, though I do throw in an accountant with a Shirley Temple obsession.

Sometimes characters and plot reveal the best choice of career or job to further our stories. You need a detective in a whodunit, for example. But Agatha Christie’s  Miss Marple was an elderly spinster and a most unlikely detective, something Christie used to her advantage.

So the next time I’m considering character careers, I’m going to forget the doctor or the teacher or the artist or the politician (especially the politician). I’m going to look for something fresh. How about a timeshare seller or a spider researcher or a cello maker or an otter technician for the Department of Conservation? Or  a chimney sweep . . . letter carrier  . . . judo instructor . . . dialysis tech . . . FAA tower controller . . . exterminator . . . glass blower . . . Christmas Around the World salesperson . . . preschool dance teacher?

So many jobs . . . I’d better get writing.

But first I’m heading out to get a t-shirt printed for the Graduate and his co-workers. I want it to read: Recycling Equipment Engineer . . . and proud of it.

My April Reads

Spring is bursting out all over the place. I love the warmth of the sun on my back as I clean up the pots on the deck, and it’s uplifting to see the tulips blooming in the back yard when I open the door to let Team Sheltie outside too. Like every other spring, I have a long list of garden chores to do. I’ve spent a little time outside lately but not as much as I’d like (or as much as the garden needs). Instead I’ve been slammed with some unexpected deadlines and I’ve been staying inside to meet them. Reading time has been at a premium too. But I always manage to find a few minutes . . . Here’s what I’m reading this month.

At the gym: Talking with my Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater by Gail Simmons

On the Kindle: Beware of Angel by E.C. Sheedy

Before Bed: The Art of Slow Writing by Louise De Salvo

Books read to date in 2017: 25

 

Writers and Walking

Today is National Walking Day which makes it a perfect time to talk about writing and walking. I’m not talking about the benefits of walking and writing at a treadmill desk, though I love mine and recommend you try one if you get the chance. Instead I’m talking about writers who walk as part of their writing life.

First, a quick reminder of body chemistry. Walking, like many other forms of exercise, improves blood flow. It makes the heart pump faster and that sends more blood and oxygen circulating throughout our body and brains. Scientists also believe that regular walking promotes new connections between brain cells and helps prevent brain tissue from withering with age. In short, walking is good for us. And long before scientists were espousing its benefits, writers seem to know it.

William Wordsworth, for instance, was a celebrated walker; his poetry is filled with walks through forests and up mountains. His friend and essayist Thomas De Quincy estimated that the poet walked nearly 180,000 miles during his lifetime, an average of six and a half miles a day starting from about age five.

Virginia Woolf depended on walks through England’s South Downs to “have space to spread my mind out in.” Henry David Thoreau walked three or four hours a day sauntering through woods and fields to collect his thoughts and help inform his prose. When Charles Dickens couldn’t sleep at night, he’d walk London’s streets until dawn. Even when insomnia wasn’t a problem, he was a walker, declaring “If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.”

Danish writer Soren Kierkgaard wrote in the morning and walked the streets of Copenhagen in the afternoon, mentally composing paragraphs and working through new ideas. After the walk, he’d head back to the desk to get his thoughts down on paper.

Ernest Hemmingway also walked as a way to work out issues in his writing. “I would walk when I’d finished work or when I was trying to think something out,” he wrote in A Moveable Feast. “It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something.”

Henry Miller believed most writing is “done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I’d say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments while you’re walking or shaving or playing a game or whatever.”

One of my favorite passages on walking is found in If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland (the book is highly recommended, by the way). She writes: “I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five-or six-mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day. I have done this for many years. It is at these times I seem to get re-charged.”

More recently, Orson Scott Card was quoted as saying that it’s “worth the time to take an hour’s walk before writing. You may write a bit less for the time spent, but you may find that you write better.”

And if that’s not enough incentive, how about this last quote from the prolific and successful J.K. Rowling who says, “There’s nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.”

Night or day, walking isn’t only good for you it’s also good for your writing. And that’s something to celebrate on this, National Walking Day.

My March Reads

Go pick up a funny book and read it. Please. Or visit a funny website or watch something outrageous on YouTube or tell a joke that makes someone laugh until they snort questionable substances out their nose.

Last Sunday the Canadian cultural scene lost a comedy giant – Bob Robertson. Bob was one half of the Double Exposure team. The other half, his wife Linda Cullen, has been my friend for a long, long time. We weren’t quite in diapers when we met, though there were times we laughed so hard we probably should have been. Linda and Bob were a team for over thirty years and together they brought a tremendous amount of joy to Canadians.

If that’s the mark of a life well-lived, then Bob maxed it out. Below this blog check out an iconic Double Exposure moment.

In his memory and because I need some comic relief right now, there’s only one book on this month’s list. I know Bob would approve.

 

Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins (My A – Z index)

Here’s a clip of Jack and Rexella. Smell Your End from Double Exposure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oHRAhMQp8w

 

Another Lesson from the Garden

Nature is giving me another writing lesson.

She’s behind this year, or so everyone says. Daffodils, normally in bloom weeks ago, are only now starting to open. The buds on the fruit trees surrounding our house are still, with the exception of a few keeners, tightly furled. We live on old orchard land and normally by the end of February we’re cocooned in a frothy haze of sweetly scented blooms that last, if we’re lucky, for three or four weeks. Instead, here it is the middle of March and we’re still waiting. It’s been a rough winter; the wait feels long; people are complaining about Mother Nature.

In fact, Mother Nature is dancing to her own particular tune and her timing isn’t always our timing. Timing in the publishing world doesn’t always fit what we want or expect either.

Last November I launched a Laura Tobias title (Million Dollar Blues if you care to look it up) on Amazon. I knew enough to avoid a December release – holiday sales can be notoriously slow unless you catch a wave between Christmas and New Year’s when people are off work. What I hadn’t counted on was the fallout from the American election negatively impacting ebook sales. It did, across the board, and writers are only now starting to recover. It was a timing issue I didn’t expect, though apparently it’s not the first time book sales have plummeted during election months so it’s something to keep in mind for next time.

In December I submitted a YA novel to a publisher I’ve worked with before, hoping for a sale (obviously) and expecting a quickish turnaround. Not quick (I knew better than to expect that) but quickish since this particular publisher has always been good that way. However, due to a combination of circumstances beyond anyone’s control, things are backed up there too and it’s going to be a while yet before I hear one way or another. It’s not the timeline I had in mind but there’s nothing I can do about that either.

We were at a memorial for a friend last weekend. One of his favorite sayings was some days you get chickens, some days only feathers. To that I would add some days you get silence, other days you get feedback. Some days you get rejections, other days you get acceptance.

And some days you get blossoms, other days only buds.

Buds, however, hold promise. And promises can keep you going when you’re waiting for the timing to turn.

 

Slaughtering the Goat

If you’re a squeamish, goat- loving vegan this blog may not be for you.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a writer friend. The email, which was sent to a group of us, mentioned the phenomenal productivity of another writer who produces – wait for it – 100,000 words a month.

Yes, a month, and he has the books to prove it.

To which one of the group replied that the only way that would happen for her is if she slaughtered a goat and made a pact with the devil. So from now on I’ve decided to refer to my daily output or writing my words as ‘slaughtering the goat.’

Why is it that we’re never happy with our own pace of slaughtering the goat? Why do we beat ourselves up for being too slow (usually) or too fast (rarely; in fact I’ve never heard anyone complain about writing too fast)? When I stop and think about it, we all slaughter the goat differently and at our own pace. But the goat does get slaughtered. We get there in the end.

I beat myself up for a day or two after reading that email. Why don’t I write faster, why can’t I be more prolific? It didn’t take long for me to stop being so ridiculous. Traveling from one place to another takes time. Seeds grow when they’re ready to grow. Creating anything – needlepoint, art, a sculpted body – takes time too. I don’t expect instant results most of the time.

So why should I when it comes to slaughtering that damned goat?

I shouldn’t, except my writing friends are slaughtering their own goats and I’m peering over my fence watching how they’re doing it and I’m comparing their method to my method and worrying that I’m doing it wrong and being too messy and probably inefficient too. Mostly I worry, like a lot of writers do, that I’m not slaughtering the goat fast enough.

Because you know what they say: if you slaughter the goat slowly, it suffers. And nobody wants to make a goat suffer. That’s bad karma and God knows we don’t need more bad karma.

So what to do? The only thing you can do, I guess. Approach the goat with love. Treat it kindly. Carry out the slaughter the best way you can. And don’t compare how you do it to anybody else. In the end, it’s not about anybody else. It’s a deal between you and the goat.

Writerly Inspiration

I don’t need an excuse to check out author or writing-related sites and you probably don’t either. But if you want to add a new blog stop to your regular roster or you simply want a few minutes away from your WIP, check out any one of the following links. All of these blogs offer up great content; some are inspirational, others are educational and occasionally they’re both.

C.S. Lakin’s Live Write Thrive  http://www.livewritethrive.com/ is a favorite of mine. Lakin covers everything from scene structure and character development to boosting productivity, growing your audience and the power of positive thinking.

Prolific mystery author Elizabeth Spann Craig  http://elizabethspanncraig.com/blog/  is quickly becoming a favorite too. She addresses all things relevant to the writing life: how to make a living at this crazy gig; why she’s gone indie over traditional; top time savers and tips on public speaking to name only a few. She also provides a weekly roundup of the best writing links on the web.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s Inky Girl http://inkygirl.com/  is the place to go if you write or illustrate children’s books. She shares her original comics (reason enough to pop by, in my opinion), provides information on new releases, sometimes interviews industry experts and is always good for a smile.

A feel good stop high on motivation is Lucy Flint’s Lionhearted Writing Life. http://www.lucyflint.com/  If you’ve ever felt stuck, been derailed or struggled to find a balance between work and play this is the place to check out.

To help give your characters psychological depth, to understand what readers really want, or to find out how to deal with writing fears, check out Tamar Sloan’s PsychWriter. https://psychwriter.com.au/ And be prepared to stay a while. There’s a lot of terrific content here.

A book within easy reach in my office is The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. I refer to it often and I also like to stop in at their blog Writers Helping Writers http://writershelpingwriters.net/ where the focus is on helping writers become better storytellers. You’ll find some great resources here.

Who doesn’t love Writer Unboxed http://writerunboxed.com/ and the rotating daily column by a variety of writers? It’s delivered to my in box daily and I’ve come to recognize who posts when and I look forward to the different styles and viewpoints. It’s a fairly interactive community with lots of comments on each post and that’s fun too!

And last but definitely not least is Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s  Kris Writes http://kriswrites.com/category/on-writing/  I love her down-to-earth take and I appreciate the fact that she’s in the trenches trying to make sense of this crazy business. I don’t find her site all that easy to navigate so I subscribe to her blog instead. If you’re unfamiliar, visit her site and scroll back through her posts to find her take on how U.S. election years impact book sales. They should be required reading for indie authors.