Throne of the Crescent Moon in the Rearview Mirror

Hello, readers!  How are you beautiful people doing today?  

I just finished reading Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon, and it's wonderful. Though the book is definitely written to be YA friendly, the characters are dynamic, driven by multiple motivations, and every bit as devastatingly flawed and hopelessly heroic as we humans are. Whether it's the good Doctor Adoulla struggling to balance his job (ghul-hunting) with the home life he wishes he had, or the dashing lioness Zamia Banu Laith Badawi fighting to discover what it means to be the last of her tribe and its Protector, the characters are inspiring, frustrating, and complex.  Also, despite the YA 

Ahmed's work is set in a distinctly Middle Eastern setting, not unlike Medina (with some extra magic thrown in). Then he peopled it with zealots, traitors, thieves, and prostitutes – there are some bad guys, too. Superbly written with just a touch of exoticism, this is a must read.

If you've already read it, or you have book suggestions, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading.  

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, in the Rearview.

Hello, Readers!


Thanks again for dropping in.  Lately, I've been doing a lot of posts about social justice, particularly addressing Rape Culture issues, but today, I wanted to share a book that has been incredibly freeing to me personally: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.  In case you don't know who Susan Cain is, here's an awesome TED Talk about why Introverts are still awesome.  

 In case you're reading my blog and you happen to be an extrovert, let me assure you that Quiet in no way insults or demeans extroversion, and as I'll get into, it even has some tips on how to be even better at what you're already exceptional at.  

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy's feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight... Indeed the presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them.

– Allen Shawn 

Susan Cain opens Quiet with the above quote, then prefaces each chapter with a quote of its own which encapsulates the chapter's contents quite nicely.  As we read through Quiet, Cain first lays out the definitions of each word that she'll be using, so that even a Psychology lay-person (like myself) can understand exactly what she means. Then as Quiet continues, Cain builds on these definitions to create a rich nuance that respects and validates both introverts and extroverts.  

Quiet walks us through the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the US, then examines what we as a whole culture have lost because we have favored one type of presentation and personality over another type.  In fact, Quiet is a master balancing act that argues for diversity and collaboration as a means of achieving greater success for both personality types.  Which is of course why Cain opens with the quote from Allen Shawn.  We are interdependent.  Where one person might be strong, another might be weak.  Steve Wozniak wouldn't have been the huge success he was without the strong presentation and branding skills of Steve Jobs.  Moses wouldn't have been able to convince Israel to leave Egypt without the extroversion of Aaron.  And so on.  Cain doesn't argue for supremacy but for peace and mutual appreciation.  

One of Cain's chapters, entitled "When Collaboration kills Creativity," evaluates the rise of what she terms "New Groupthink" (watch the video for more information on that).  We all remember what it was like being forced to collaborate either in school (starting as early as Kindergarten in some cases) or in work (especially with the rise of totally "open" office designs).  Some people don't contribute very much, some not at all, and some dominate the process regardless of ability, because we as a society have taught that speaking convincingly is more important than having any real ideas.  The studies that Cain uses to address this topic of New Groupthink and forced collaboration actually show that all people perform worse under forced collaboration than when they work alone.  However, if each member of a group works independently on a project and then come together, the groups do dramatically better than any one member working alone.  Cain's research doesn't condemn collaboration, but it calls into question how we collaborate.  

Throughout Quiet, Cain validates introverts and encourages us (even extroverts) to be true to our natures.  One of the incredibly useful things that Cain points out is that introverts and extroverts require different levels of stimulation in order to be focused.  If you study better with the TV on or music blaring, then you're probably an extrovert.  If you focus better with minimal outside stimulus, then you're probably an introvert.  

Armed with that knowledge, I started looking through my daily journals and noting which days I got the most writing done, and I noticed, overwhelmingly, that the days when I didn't listen to music were the days when I not only got more writing done, but the writing I did was better and required less editing later on.  Granted, some days, I'll still want to listen to music, but now that I know what the ideal level of outside stimulus is (close to zero), I can create (and already have created) more effective work habits.  

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this book highly enough for both introverts and extroverts.  1 in 3 people are introverted in the US, so that means that you do know some introverts.  Quiet will help extroverts to respect the quiet strengths of introverts, while remaining true to their own natures.  For those of us who are introverts, Quiet is a breath of fresh air, a real call for us to be true to ourselves, to love our needs for solitude, to recognize that we are awe-inspiring just the way we are.  

Thanks for reading. Get out there and embrace your excellence.  

The Dispossessed through the rear-view mirror.

Hello, Readers, and thanks for stopping by.  

I just finished reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed. Honestly, I can say that LeGuin's wonderful story has helped to make me a more aware writer and reader which will in turn lead me to be better at both.  With the increasing transparency of our societal problems here in the USA, especially as we mourn and bury Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO., today, this book matters.  The ideas within it matter, because power, no matter where it is held, eventually gets abused.  Always.  No matter how grand or pure the intentions of those who hold or seek power, power gets abused.  There are myriad ways that power is abused, but the reasons for power abuse stem from a systematic truth about power:
Power creates inertia.
And inertia is not resistance to movement; it is resistance to change.  This is what Ursula K. LeGuin communicates through her writing as we follow this picaresque tale of Shevek, a physicist.  LeGuin works through monumental amounts of information on politics and science and being human without dredging into the pedantic.  

Personally, I found it incredibly difficult to get through the first one hundred pages, because of how much was implied by these vibrant characters and the deep contrasts between being one who owns property and one who has all things in common, but once I climbed those 100 pages, the view was incredible.  LeGuin deftly maneuvers and guides the reader around cairns of broken logic, through spindly forests of tired cliches to reveal a truth behind everything we humans have ever heard about any societal structure: fear.  

Fear specifically of change and of therefore losing one's power to keep things the same drives every social structure.  Sadly, wonderfully, LeGuin points out that we as a species fear that which is our greatest single capacity: change, and its vehicle, learning.  

That said, The Dispossessed does have some roughness that may trip up readers new to LeGuin.  Namely, the writing, despite portraying vivid and believable and, yes, likable characters, LeGuin's style in The Dispossessed can seem detached, even clinical at times, but I encourage you as readers and as writers to push through and see that even this style which may be off-putting has a purpose in this masterfully crafted narrative.  

As always, thanks for reading.  

Please share any books that you feel have made you into a better reader and writer below.  Or, if you'd be willing, share how The Dispossessed impacted your thoughts.  

On Becoming A Novelist, A Review

I apologize for the late post, regular scheduling will resume tomorrow.

For the genre novelist, On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner is a hard resource to swallow.  Gardner doesn't mince words over storytelling, and as with his The Art of Fiction, he compares pornographers and thriller writers, but the fact is in modern publishing, Gardner has incredibly useful advice whether one is just beginning one's career or mid-career (as most novelists are throughout their lives.  Writers don't retire - except heels first).

The most important lessons in On Becoming a Novelist are 1) that even the best advice can be detrimental to one's own voice and style, and 2) that writing one great story is better and more worthy than writing one hundred bad ones.

The  possible hang up with this second bit of advice is that in writing, as Harlan Coben says, "quantity inevitably produces quality."  So, when you query - make damn sure it's your best and most worthy story, but don't let the fear of failing in a story keep you from writing.

Besides these bits of advice are reminders of the lessons we learned in Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing. Review is always useful.  Also, Gardner shares insights into his own process and schedule which may stretch your own habits or at least make you aware of other available tools.  And what is a craft without tools?

Overall, I'd rate this title highly as a resource for any author, and while it might not make a terrific teaching text, it would be an excellent companion to any Creative Writing course.

As always, thanks for reading.

"What I learned from [Lennis Dunlap], in short, is that a writer must take infinite pains -- if he writes only one great story in his life, that is better than writing a hundred bad ones -- and that finally the pains the writer takes must be his own." (Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist, 19)

How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, A Review

"Tell them to write as honestly as they can. Tell them to ponder their characters to make sure that the emotions their characters feel and the decisions their characters make - their choices, their courses of action - are consistent with the characters they have envisioned.  And tell them to check and recheck each sentence to be sure they have communicated what they intended to communicate.  And to ask themselves, What does this sentence say? Are its nuances the nuances I want? Tell them that's what they have to do if they aspire to write a damn good novel."  - Lester Gorn

There are a few things How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, Advanced Techniques is not: it is not a magic wand, it is not a waste of time, it is not light reading, and it is not a book for the beginning writer.  This book assumes that you have a reasonable grasp on how to formulate a plot, write characters, and handle a premise (without which your plot is just another absurdist comedy regardless of your pacing or gripping action sequences.  Premise is what your book aims to prove in around 80,000 words).  If you haven't spent at least a few thousand hours on writing, then this book likely will not be as useful to you as another book on the bare bones of writing.

As promised in the title, Frey delivers hard hitting advice on how to write with increased complexity and realism.  He starts off with a chapter on the Fictive dream - which it is your job as the author to induce - and how it's not in fact a dream at all, but a trance.  The following chapters are like nested for-loops (for the coders) or the dreams within a dream from Inception (for everyone else).  If you're one of the three people that hasn't seen Inception, basically it's a multi-layered frame tale like that old shaggy dog about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader ad nauseum.  EXCEPT!  Your stories better only induce nausea from terror and wicked descriptions, not boredom, or your writing dreams are DOA.

Frey will guide you through how to really craft the telling details that will make your minor characters pop without taking over the scene, how to redream the fictive dream yourself while editing, further tips on orchestration (which Lajos Egri discusses in his masterpiece), and most importantly of all: Multiple Premises. While the story has one premise (let's use Macbeth, because I like Scotch), say "Ruthless Ambition leads to destruction," the protagonist(s) might have quite another: "Power belongs to those who can seize opportunity" (Lady Macbeth), or "Betrayal earns death" (Banquo).  However, what Frey means here is that a single story can contain TWO main story premises, but for this to work you need two equally strong protagonists (hence why orchestration is covered before this chapter).  This means that you'll have 2 climaxes (they should be near each other), 2 moments of truth (the protagonist must choose either to sacrifice his/her lover and live or risk death themselves), etc.  For example, you could have "Selfish Love leads to Desolation" (Male Lead) and "Tyranny sows the seeds for Freedom" (Female Lead).  In fact, those could be the arguable premises for Ibsen's The Doll House.

Bottom line, get some writing under your belt (if you read this blog, likely you already DO have a non-trivial amount of writing under your belt), buy this book, and enjoy the confidence of the James N. Frey's 100% guarantee: work hard, learn well, re-dream the dream, eat the delicious pie of publication.
Just keep in mind that Jack London worked hard, and for him that meant 18 hours a day 7 days a week locked in his office writing, but then again, when he started he could barely string a sentence together.
Also, Mr. London is dead.  Whereas you are still alive and therefore your potential is limitless.  Now get back to work.

The Art of Fiction, A Review

I promised to review How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, Advanced Techniques, by James N. Frey, but I feel that today's review is more important for those sniffing out good craft books.

Along with How to Write a Damn Good Novel and The Art of Dramatic Writing, I think John Gardner's The Art of Fiction should be required reading for any introductory Fiction Writing course.  It comes laden with superb exercises (conveniently condensed in the back of the book), exercises specifically honed to work on only a handful of aspects at once.  This solid book will likely introduce you (I mean you specifically not you as in "one") to new vocabulary, because Gardner doesn't fear sounding erudite.  He's writing for a group that wants to be the upper crust and will not settle for "mere fiction" but strive for art.

That being said, many creative writing teachers will tell you that all genre writing is "mere fiction," a thought echoed by Gardner, who lumps pornographers and cheap thriller writers together in the same sentence.  However, in today's modern market for writing, mere fiction will not get you onto the shelves.  People want their fantasy to comment on their real world problems, their thrillers to show that the world is scarier than a riding a rollercoaster in Hell while blindfolded and seated next to some black widow demon with wings - but that this world can STILL be conquered by hope and perseverance (and maybe a little luck).  People want characters that actually are impacted by the events around them.  If you pick up any Stephen King or Dean Koontz book, you'll be able to figure that out.

Here's the bottom line: The Art of Fiction will give you concrete examples and advice on how to write more than mere fiction, and all in the wonderful tone of one of the greatest writing instructors of the Twentieth Century.  His book also pinpoints common errors and failures in order to direct students through the maze of writing.  In addition, Gardner will arm you with the tools you need to analyze Kafka-esque novels, and the firm grounding to see that the novelist's job is not dead, not discarded, not outmoded.

Pick up a copy, start reading, and throw out all thoughts you once had of settling for "mere fiction." Life's too short, as John Gardner knew.  Once you have digested some of his words, set yourself at the typewriter (I can't be the only one who likes the machine gun fire of mechanical creation) and get to work writing - some of his exercises are fabulous pre-writing warmups.

Your First Novel, a review

Here's a review of Your First Novel by Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitberg.

This is a freebie, because honestly there's not much content that you can't get faster and better and with less "positive thinking"/"visualization"/"dreams can come true" bullshit from another book on craft.  Now, I'm on a bit of an anti-positive thinking kick,  because I'm reading Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich.  If you're as tired of hearing "think it and it will come true" stories from Joel Osteen and his ilk, then this is a book that will be actually useful for you.

Your First Novel opens with a great foreword by Dennis Lehane and his overnight/ten year success that emphasizes the hard work it takes to be a writer, while the next two chapters encourage you to dream about your success, and it will be sure to come to you.  That is a load of bollocks.  Any writer worth their salt will try to tell you to steer clear of writing, to run while you still have a chance, but if you're reading this review and looking for books on craft, then it's already too late.

If you actually want something worth reading that's still inspirational, I'd recommend the NYT Writer's on Writing volumes I and II.  Essays about writing by writers, it's hard to beat.

Cheers, and write on, dear readers.