I recently finished The Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri S. Tepper. I really wanted to like this book a lot. It is about a society where the women and men have created separate but seemingly symbiotic societies. This not just right up my alley; it’s practically the alley I live in. But something was missing. Come, readers. Let’s wind through my thoughts about this book and why, oh why, I was left wanting.
Spoilers abound after the break.
Crooked/Shift has accepted my short story An Ineffective Devil for their next issue (tentatively due out October 24th, just in time for Halloween)! Take a moment and check out their site, and I will be sure to remind you when the issue is released.
Thank you all for joining me on this little journey of mine. May it get even more exciting!
After a week of experimenting with the write-before-the-rest-of-my-life-starts-for-the-day, I am happy to report it’s working! I was struggling to get 500 words written a week. Like struggling. Like knowing my computer was judging me as I clicked the next episode of Buffy. End of the day is just so exhausting and needs so much more effort to do one more thing before letting myself relax. Even though, when I have all the time in the world, I much prefer writing in the afternoons and evenings. But! Back to the point, I wrote nearly 2500 words last week!
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As I wrote earlier this week, I’ve been stressed about making time to write with everything on my to-do list and the daily appointments that cannot be skipped. Well, let’s rephrase. I’ve been stressing myself out about this, unnecessarily. Life still happens, I still have time to write, I just have to make sure it doesn’t turn into a chore (because what would be the point of that?!). Luckily, I have these great friends that remind me that if something isn’t working, I can simply try something else.
Right, I say to myself, my decisions are not etched in stone for eternity. Perfect choices are not perfect all the time. Calm down and experiment.
With some of this jealously guarded time, I’m on the lookout for advice from people who’ve been through this (why reinvent the wheel?). @elissshuman discussed his daily routine of hitting a coffee shop in the morning before work for 1 single hour to write. Reading that, I thought to myself, 😀 Self! There is a coffee shop a mere block away! It opens at 7! You would need to leave for school shortly after 8! Let’s try it! (I make sure to use plenty of exclamations points and emoticons when talking to myself.)
So, that’s the experiment for this week. I am not a morning person at all, but I like to work in the mornings. Basically, I hate everyone until sufficiently caffeinated and working intensely keeps the rest of world from bothering me until I can behave like human being.
The challenge I am expecting/experiencing is the snooze button and actually making it out of bed. I mean, when you don’t actually have to get up until 7ish, waking up at 6/6:30 is going to be tough.
But, instead of being defeatist about it, like I am with getting up early to exercise, I am going to embrace the challenge and the test of morning writing sessions. Wish me luck, dear readers, but not before I’ve had my coffee.
Thar be spoilers below! Continue reading
I’ve been struggling, dear readers. I have lots on my plate at the moment: last year of law school turning out busier than planned, trying to have something of a social life, putting in the time for the relationships that matter, Tumblr addiction to feed, stories to read, shows to watch, travel to plan. An incredibly privileged life, I know. But the writing is essential for me. Both for my own personal goals and for my self-care. Without creativity, all of those things I have to do, their colors bleed out and they become grey or, worse, beige.
Mornings are a fight with the alarm clock, especially when the sunrise isn’t there to back it up. And evenings somehow leak minutes until even though I scheduled myself to be writing, I find myself suddenly at bed time without having written a word. I think I don’t need a new plan; I think I need a new way to look at my time, to look at how writing fits into my world.
How do you do it? Is it a matter of sacrifice to the time gods (or lords)? Small pieces of time? Setting aside large chunks? What kind of advice would you give your past self when they were trying to figure out their own schedule?
Perhaps one day I’ll read a book published in the last year. Today is not that day. Having just started back to (my last year of) law school, I need to read not-law things, but I want to get lost and hang out in a good story. I don’t want to get a few chapters in and sigh, setting aside the book because this one is just not getting me. Basically, I’m looking for a low risk read. Which makes this a good time to catch up on that pile of recommended books. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes called out to me from my list (plus it was 5 bucks at The Strand).
The Quick and Dirty Plot: A mentally handicapped man becomes part of a scientific experiment that turns him into a genius and just as quickly, but unexpectedly, turns him back.
A lot of friends read this book in high school as part of an English class I apparently did not take, which is how it ended up on my recommendation list (note: most of my friends don’t read these kinds of stories but they know I love them). Aside from the engaging, tragic, beautiful writing, Keyes captures so sharply the experience of wanting to be part of some inner circle and the complications that come if you are ever invited in, because you will never really be one of them. The story is completely told through the eyes of the protagonist (Charlie), and we watch him understand more about the world he wants to be part of, watch him reject it, watch him become a new version of it, and then watch him lose it all, clinging desperately to any piece of it he can. Charlie becomes us and then becomes himself again, and we both want and don’t want that for him.
Things to Note: The book uses the R-word when discussing Charlie and his handicap, but mostly (if not exclusively) as a factual word rather than a purely pejorative one. In addition, the treatment of the female characters is unsurprising for a book penned in the 1960s, but they mostly lack depth and complication and are picked up and used and dropped almost without thought.
If you haven’t read Flowers for Algernon, and the above warnings would not ruin the experience for you, definitely add it to your to-read list (which hopefully doesn’t also involve law school, because no one should wish that on anyone).
The scribe took possession of his grandmother’s knitting. Needles, yarn, and projects in progress. All impeccably, impossibly ordered in the bag. Brightly colored balls tightly wound and thin off-white in ovals ready to be wound, tags keeping it from chaos.
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David falls again. Skinned knees and bruised hands evidence of his struggle to hold himself up. The memories of doing this the first time around inaccessible to ease his anxiety about how long all of this was taking and how hard all of it was. He lays down no the tile floor, tears puddling and oozing around his cheek. His mother’s voice echoed across his mind.
Get up. Do it again. We don’t sit there. We try again. Get. Up. David. Continue reading
I have not had a book hangover in a few years, but The Sparrow gave me a really hard, really good on. I spent days avoiding reading or watching anything fiction. The story clung to me, and my brain did not want (yet) to be distracted from processing what I had just experienced. I paused my own writing, focusing on research I needed to do anyway. I spent a week wondering if I should pick up and start reading the book again. (I didn’t, but it is in my room, waiting for me). The last book hangover I remember was American Gods. That was three years ago. I was in Nepal at the time, so dealing with it was a lot easier than this one. Even if I watched TV, it was in Nepali or Hindi, so my comprehension was pretty superficial.
So I loved The Sparrow. (And actually, I feel my book hangover coming back writing this post.) Continue reading
CJ René 