Archive for » January, 2009 «
I’ve been dealing with some pretty bad stomach issues since I was 18. It set in pretty much instantly the second semester of my first year at college. At first it was something of a joke. My roommate and friend had what she later found out was IBS and I would always tease that I caught her bad stomach. More often than not I was able to link the pain to alcohol, so I stopped drinking.
Then it evolved. I wasn’t drinking but I was still getting some pretty bad pain. It was so bad by my third year of college that I’d nearly failed out because I missed so much. I had transferred to a school (my third transfer) and I thought my grades went with it so I had something to fall back on. Nope. I ended up with a .67 GPA at the end of my first semester in my third year. I wasn’t on academic probation. I got on the fast track to getting booted and had to plead my case to the dean. Unfortunately, what I had wasn’t classified as a “legitimate” long-term illness by the school and it was at my professors’ will what happened with my grades. Too bad for me I had teachers that didn’t give a shit and would so much as not even bother to return my emails. Nice, huh? Thankfully this wasn’t in the English department.
I ended up at my first gastroenterologist not too long after that but he was a bit of a hack. More concerned with medicating than really treating. Said if the Nexium worked then there was no need to go any further. Of course not! Why would I want to find out what’s actually wrong with me when I could just take a pill to cover it up? Sort of. Right. The endoscopy turned up nothing and since the Nexium helped, it was chalked up to some kind of acid reflux (although he’d already determined it wasn’t, no damage in my esophagus or stomach lining) and I went on my way.
Just before I left for England in 2006 I stopped taking it. I was sick of taking it, figured I didn’t need it and I was right. I didn’t have that insane pain anymore. I had little spits of discomfort for the next couple of years and then just before I went to California back in October, I had another serious attack, like the kind I was getting that horrible semester in school.
The Washington Post released an article about the Newbery Awards and how, just maybe, the seemingly high brow award may be more detrimental to a child’s reading than beneficial.
Honestly, I’m more inclined to agree with this rebuttal article and add a few more points but first, the argument against the Newbery. Essentially, critics of the Newbery feel that the books that are chosen as award winners aren’t those that kids would necessarily want to read or could really understand. It’s an award that’s out of touch with the youth of America and thus forcing children to read books that don’t stimulate them could turn them off to reading even more.
I don’t know about you, but even with all of the information in that first article, I still think it’s a pretty weak argument, not to mention slightly underestimating younger readers. That’s why I like the second article better. Personally, I find nothing wrong with the Newbery, no more so than the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. Remember when Stephen King won the NBA? And all those masters of lit-ra-ture scoffed at a genre writer winning an award that was supposedly so far out of his reach? That’s kind of why I don’t read a lot of those books. Many of them are filled with pretentious naval-gazing and I do see the Newbery as being, relatively speaking, the children’s equivalent. At least the Newbery winners can’t stop open doors.
Tal has lived his whole life in darkness. He has never left his home, a mysterious castle of seven towers. He does not see the threat that will tear apart his family and his world.
But Tal cannot stay safe forever. When danger strikes, he must desperately climb the Red Tower to steal a Sunstone. He reaches the top…
…and then he falls into a strange and unknown world of warriors, iceships, and hidden magic. There Tal makes an enemy who will save his life—and holds the key to his future. (bn.com)
I. Am. So. Lost. I’ve never read a book and come out this disoriented before. Holy crap. Right from the beginning you’re shoved into this world with weird names being thrown at you, many without any kind of explanation so you’re left to try and figure out just what this something’s supposed to look like but you have no idea because it could rightly be anything. That . . . was a huge turn off for me. Immediately I’m supposed to know what all of this stuff is, what’s going in, why it’s so important to get into Aenir. And I don’t. I’m just told that’s how it is. Therein lies the major flaw.
You know you have them. If you’re a writer, no matter how much you love to write, there are just certain aspects of it that have you procrastinating until it’s 4 am. Don’t lie.
For me, one of them is naming my characters, namely surnames. I hate it. Absolutely despise is with the passion from the fiery pits of Hell. I never know how to work my MCs’ (or any characters’) full name into the story and not have it sound contrived. Even when it’s a viable means of saying it so the reader knows what it is it still sounds like I’m forcing it. I can’t stand it. Are last names necessary in fiction? Will it kill the readers to never know my characters’ last names?
The other one is titling. I hate giving anything a title even more than I hate giving my characters last names. I yearn for the day when titling is out of my hands and into those of the publishers. They know what they’re doing and can come up with some pretty good stuff. Me, I just gimp around usually with the first thing that pops into my head and hope for the best. But attachment, pretty much never. Up until my junior year of college I never titled anything until my creative writing professor said I had to. With hindsight I know I don’t have to but I didn’t know any better then. But it’s not like I can query a novel called Untitled. Agents like to see you can at least come up with something.
So what about you? What aspects of writing can you just not stand?
And OMG help me hatch my eggs! They’ll die if you don’t! You don’t want that to happen, do you? Caled needs family!
In this master class on the craft of writing, Stephen King reveals the origins of his vocation and shares essential habits and rules that every writer can apply. A truly unique volume, it begins with a series of telling memories from youth and the struggling years leading up to publication of King’s first novel. Offering readers a fresh and often funny perspective on the formation of a writer’s character, King lays out the tools of writer’s craft and takes the reader through aspects of the writer’s art and life, offering practical and inspiring advice on everything from plot and character to work habits and rejection. Brilliantly structured and chock-full of master’s experience and advice, On Writing will enable the work of writers around the globe. (from bn.com)
How I could kick my own butt for taking so long to read this. What a wonderful book on the craft and, really, there wasn’t all that much to it. Not really. Not compared to the multitude of other books on writing.
King takes a different approach to “dictating” how one might be able to write and, I have to say, it gave me a different outlook on this very blog and is one of the reasons I decided to incorporate more of myself and fewer “lessons” on writing. Because, really, there are no hard and fast rules (something I already knew) but what use does it do to teach others what really only works for you? Most of it, at least.
What I got from the book is that the events surrounding his writing, the places he worked, the people he met, the ears he got lanced, helped to mold his writing better than anything else. When he talked about his work experiences, I was able to immediately pinpoint certain stories of his to those experiences. Not to mention I was laughing my ass off at certain points. The man has a talent for dry wit that I just love, even when talking about getting hit by that van.
