Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How Doing a Puzzle is Like Writing a Book

I did a puzzle earlier this year. My brother was kind enough to help me out when I ran into trouble with the border at the very beginning but, after that, it was all me. It was the first time I had ever done a 1000-piece puzzle mostly by myself and it took me much longer than I had thought it would. As I was working on it, I would think of how I could be spending the time working on my novel and that was when I realized there were a number of similarities between completing the puzzle and completing my novel.



1) It took me way longer than I thought it would.

I was naive enough to think that I could finish the puzzle in a few weeks. It took me closer to five months. However, that just made me that much more proud of the finished product. I took a picture, posted it to all my social media, bragged to all of my virtual friends (and real friends). It felt awesome.

Likewise, my novel has taken me much longer to complete than I thought it would. I completed the first draft in one year and, considering I work full time, I was actually pretty happy with that. It was all the editing that surprised me. As with the puzzle, I was naive enough to think that I would get some constructive criticism from a few friends, make the necessary touch ups, and hit "publish". Ok, I never thought publishing was going to be that easy but I certainly never thought I would spend three years editing! However, like I said about the puzzle, the extra time has made me that much more proud of my work. When I think of how far it's come from that first draft, I have to admit, I feel pretty awesome.

2) Attention to detail is important.

My puzzle was particularly tricky in that there were a lot of pieces that looked like they went together, but they really didn't. Some of these mistakes I realized right away. Some of them I didn't realize until I was down to the last few pieces of the puzzle and I realized that they didn't fit in any of the available spots.

Same with my novel. I thought some things worked really well. I was even really proud of certain narrative choices. My beta readers were kind enough to let me know otherwise. As much as I wanted to ignore them all as ignorant panderers to current literary fashion, there were times when I had to admit they were right, especially when I got the same comment from multiple readers.

3) The value of walking away.

If I hadn't managed to add any pieces to the puzzle for a significant amount of time, I usually found that the best thing to do was to just walk away. When I came back the next day, I was refreshed and better able to find matching pieces.

We all know the value of beta readers because they have a distance from the story that we don't. Stepping away from the story and working on something else for awhile can help us gain some of that distance. This might be even more true after having received a criticism you don't agree with. Step away from the manuscript, get your mind off of it, maybe do a puzzle, and then, when you come back, you might be able to see it from your reader's perspective.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi

I actually didn't think I wanted to read this book. I was wrong. I should have known better and had more faith in Scalzi because this book is absolutely something that I wanted to read, whether I knew it or not. I didn't think I wanted to read it because I knew it was just a retelling of The Last Colony from Zoe's perspective and, as much as I love both The Last Colony and Zoe, I wasn't very interested in rereading that. Then my brother read it and advised that I read it, too. Thank god I bought him all of the first four books for Christmas! I took his advice and I am immensely glad that I did.

Scalzi, like the true artist he is, manages to tell an entirely different story while retelling a story he's already written. There is a minimum of repeated scenes (like, maybe two) and he does an excellent job of glossing over all of the stuff we saw last time. Instead, he focuses on Zoe's perspective and the things going on in her life that her parents never knew about. Also the things that they kind of knew about but only vaguely, which was awesome.



She is also an awesome character and I fully enjoyed reading about her. In his acknowledgements, Scalzi admits that he had trouble with her voice since he doesn't actually have much experience being a teenage girl *gasp* so he recruited help from some of the women in his life. For the most part, I did find her to be a very believable teenage girl, if a bit too mature for her age. Yes, I know there are always the children who act older than they are but, at a certain point, the hormones just take over. There are a number of scenes with the Obin in particular where she manages not to fly off the handle because she knows it won't do any good and I had a little bit of a hard time swallowing that. Maybe she just has more practice with the Obin than most of us but, in my experience, knowing that getting angry won't do any good and actually not getting angry are two very different things. Times ten when adolescent hormones are racing through your body and you don't have time to sleep (which she apparently didn't). On the other hand, whiny teenage girls aren't very likable interesting to read about so Scalzi is forgiven.

That being said, all the fantastic elements of The Last Colony are also present here. It is fast-paced and action-packed with a minimum of unnecessary information or anything to slow down the story. I was also surprised and glad to see Scalzi go from third person limited to first person, which is really saying something because I don't normally like first person narration.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Flight Behavior

by Barbara Kingsolver

Before I talk about this book, I would like to take a moment to pat myself on the back. While on vacation last month, we visited a bookstore that we love and I purchased three books. I have since finished all three books. That's right. They didn't sit on my shelves gathering dust for ages while I read the dozens of books I have downloaded onto my kindle or one of the countless books I could get from the library. No sir, I got down to business and read all three of these books right away while other books that I bought ages ago are still sitting on my shelf, gathering dust, slowly giving up hope that I will ever actually read them. And, yes, I still feel good about that!

I really enjoyed this book. Kingsolver is one of those authors I know has a great reputation but, while I do like her stuff, she's never been one of my favorite authors. I dove into this one because I need a serious break from all the YA and this book fit the bill perfectly. It starts off slow and took me awhile to get into it because I had gotten so accustomed to the hit-the-ground-running action-packed books that are taking over the market these days. I was bored, at first, but I stuck with it and I'm very glad I did. Once I got into it, I realized it had it's own way of maintaining suspense.

At first glance, the stakes don't seem all that high. Bored housewife is trapped in a marriage she should never have entered into, but can't leave her kids, blah, blah, blah. Hardly the end-of-the-world drama today's YA has taught me to expect.



Except the world is ending. Dellarobia (the bored housewife) happens upon millions of butterflies right in her own back yard. As it turns out, this is due to global warming. The butterflies were unable to make it to their normal winter roost in Mexico and so were forced to make due with Tennessee. The book is an excellent exploration, not only of global warming and what it could mean for us and our children, but of clashes between "high" and "low" culture.

Dellarobia is a very intelligent but uneducated woman living on a sheep farm in a small town. She starts working for Dr. Ovid Byron who is shocked to learn what their education system is like. My favorite part of their conversations on this topic is that they're filled with mutual respect. Yes, feelings get rankled but no one ever says "you're stupid" or "you're wrong". They ask why. And the other side explains and there's a great crossing of some very solid boundaries and I love it.

The only thing I didn't like was the ending. Dellarobia miraculously helps to give birth to a lamb for the first time and is all proud and ecstatic to experience the miracle of birth, etc, etc, etc. At the end she explains to her five-year-old son that she's moving out and going to college but they'll still see each other and it's all just a little too happy and predictable for me. Yes, the Earth is still FUBAR but, for now at least, everything turned out for the best. *gag*

Monday, September 2, 2013

Quiet

The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

I have a lot of feelings about this book. In one way, it answered a lot of questions for me. I have always known and accepted the fact that I am an introvert so it didn't surprise me that I fit a lot of the descriptions of introverts listed in this book. There were, however, a number of elements that did not necessarily apply to me. Of course, very few of us exist at one end of the spectrum. Most of us have elements of both and I noticed some of my more extroverted elements have been learned and developed over the years.

However, there were some things I had not anticipated. I think the most surprising one for me was the fact that introverts tend to be more conscious of letting other people down and have a higher sense of personal responsibility. This explains a lot of my interactions with some of my more introverted friends and family. I've never understood how a person could just blow people off and not even care. That has always been one of the most frustrating things in my life but, apparently, they're just born that way. It's not something that can be taught, you're either aware of it or you aren't.



I don't want to say that extroverts come off badly in this book because that's not always true. Cain points out that, in studies where introverts are paired with extroverts for conversation, both sides benefit. Introverts helped extroverts to open up and extroverts took a lot of the burden of making conversation off of the introverts who tend to struggle with small talk. I also felt deeply gratified to learn that small talk is a strength of extroverts, not introverts. We're better at the deeper discussions and I was very glad to learn that my dislike for and ineptitude with smalltalk is inborn.

Cain also points out that she took a retreat that was apparently designed for introverts. No one was forced to talk if they didn't want to. While that certainly had a certain appeal, she admitted to missing the extroverts that would normally populate a portion of the group.

Moreover, whereas our culture places a higher value on extroversion (not always for the better) Cain spends some time exploring the introvert ideal of Eastern cultures. While that certainly has it's advantages, personally, I've always thought that's a big reason their suicide rate is so high. I think we'd all be better off to find a happy medium where we can appreciate the advantages of introverts as well as the advantages of extroverts and use them appropriately.