A new resolution

I'm not yet confident in my skills as a writer. It's all still feeling quite new for me. Because I'm not so confident I've asked two people who know I'm working on this WIP to read what I've written. However I found that the comments they would come back with was really affecting my writing and my need to get the story out.

While one would simply say, I don't like this part, the other would ask the small questions that I hadn't even thought of and certainly weren't necessary to think of in the first draft. But I'd look at their questions and comments and panic. I'd say if these questions are coming up now and I can't answer them, or I'm giving the answer they don't want to hear, then my book isn't going to work. The story isn't going to be right.

Consequently I would stop writing. I'd stop for a few days or a week and then I'd usually delete huge sections. Then I'd feel deflated. I'd think I couldn't do it and that I'd never be good enough.

I know they didn't mean for their comments to have that affect on me, but I was so desperate for my story to be....right. I wanted their approval with what I was writing, I wanted them to like what was written on those pages. I'm not saying they didn't, but there were aspects that needed work, or questions that were raised that they wanted to bring up with me.

Eventually I sat back and said to myself, I'm writing this story for me. It's my story and these bits this person is telling me to include or exclude will totally change the vision I have for it. I need to do what's right for me to get this story told. I need to do whatever I can to get the first draft complete, then I can hear what they have to say.

To do this I had to basically cut them off from my story. I don't talk about the content with them much anymore, and I definitely don't send them chapters. They understand, which I'm grateful for, and for the moment that is definitely what is best for me and my WIP. Since I stopped worrying about the comments they'd make and the questions they'd raise, the ideas poured into my brain and helped the story form in my mind. Now i'm more on track than ever.

I've asked a lot of people for help getting past my roadblocks over the past month or so, and I thank you all for your advice. Every piece of advice I was given, I've kept, and I use when I need inspiration. It turned out for me though, the way to really open the dam and let the ideas flow was to get rid of the external forces and to write this story on my own.

It's scary, but I really think it's going to be worth it! 

Review: Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Written By: A. S. King

Published By: Knopf Books

Published On: October 12, 2010
Pages: 336

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.
 
So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?
 
Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.



I was recommended this book by a friend of mine who's judgement on books I trust immensely. If she goes on and on about a particular book, I'm 99% convinced that I'm going to love it. Vera Dietz was no exception.

The cover is simple yet effective, a design in which you don't often see on many modern books which I quite like. I love the way the lighter is forming the title and the green background is quite eye-catching. As you make your way through the book, you also realise the lighter is actually a very important part of the story.

The book is narrated by Vera as she moves on with her life after the death of her best friend, Charlie, who she hadn't spoken to in months after he had changed enough to cut out of his life. The thing that I really love about this book is how very real it is. As though this situation, and this life, could really happen to the average teenager.

Aside from the somewhat confusing drunken hallucinations of Vera seeing dead Charlie's ghost, the book is exceptionally well written. It was easy to get captured into the story within the first few pages and it very quickly becomes hard to put the book down. While Vera knows the true cause of Charlie's death, you want to keep reading so you can find out the heartbreaking truth of what happened on that fateful day.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves a strong and powerful YA novel.
I would give Please Ignore Vera Dietz 5 stars

What's your preferred genre?

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is an avid YA reader. She asked me what my favourite YA genre is, and then proceeded to tell me her top three genres and her top ten books in each genre.

I was kind of in awe.

I tried to answer her... I really did, but I was too busy doing this....

 

 

I had no idea what to say. I don't know what genre I firmly sit in. I just....read.

Okay I don't much like straight romance novels, but for the most part I don't stick to a particular genre. I like the book for the book and I don't want to box myself into reading just dystopian, or just steampunk, historical or sci-fi.

I choose books by hearing titles being thrown around, seeing people rave over a particular book, or if I like the sound of the book based on the plot summary. I like to read widely and I want each book I read to be dramatically different from the last, so I'll rarely read two books in the same genre one after the other. It keeps it interesting, keeps me reading. 

At the moment I'm nearing the end of a twelve book series. I've been reading it for two months, and to be honest, I can't wait to get to the end. I'm sick of it and want to read something completely different. I can see the finish line, I just wish I could read a little faster. Only problem is, I'm not motivated to read faster because it's starting to become a chore. I love the series, I love the story (albeit it's a little bit like a soap opera) but I'm wanting something new, fresh and different now.

Am I the only one who doesn't have a set preferred genre? Does anyone else just blow around like the wind? Like a non-committed village bicycle who can't decide which genre to settle down in? If you do have a preferred genre, what is yours?

 

I bawled the whole way through, and loved every minute

There are some books that stay with you long after you've read them. Of course, it'll depend on what kind of books you really love as to which ones stay with you, but I'm sure you can think of one or two that you've never quite managed to forget, or that you always say 'oh, I must read that book again'. I love stories that are true, honest, raw, and make you feel all sorts of emotions. 

The ones I'm thinking of are those that really make you think. They tug the heart strings, they make you laugh, they make you cry and you then want to go and recommend the book to everyone you know.

About a month ago I talked about non-fiction books that stick with you. Now I want to talk about fiction novels.

There's been a couple of these that I've read recently. One of which is Ape House, by Sara Gruen who wrote Water for Elephants. Water for Elephants is a great story, however I actually feel Ape House is slightly better. Maybe I'm a sucker for stories that include animals, or maybe it just really pulled me into the story, and wrapped me up in the world. I laughed and cried with the characters, I cheered them along and I got angry and the injustices. Once it finished I recommended it to my FH, to my parents and my friends. Many of them also tracked down the book and enjoyed it almost as much as I did!

Sometimes the story won't make a huge impression on you at the time, but later your mind keeps drifting back to the story. This happened with me when I read Still Alice. I think this story just resonated with me because so many people I know, or know of, including my grandmother suffer from Alzheimer's disease. This book is told from the perspective of Alice who begins to suffer from early onset Alzheimer's. It's really interesting seeing how her brain starts to fail on her, seeing how she thinks and how she begins to forget. It was also a little bit scary as the character of Alice had so much in common with my mother (profession, interests etc). While the book didn't particularly make me laugh or cry, it definitely stuck with me enough for my brain to continue drifting back to the book, six months after I read it.

The Kite Runner is one I'd love to read again, I've never forgotten the impact that book had on me. It was disturbing and heart wrenching and incredibly well written. As hard as it is to read, that is one novel I still recommend everyone to read.

The Lovely Bones is another I've read numerous times. It's heart breaking and upsetting and causes you to feel all sorts of emotions - happy, sad, angry, confused..... It's a brilliant book, and while the movie is great it doesn't compare to the book!

I've talked before about The Tea Rose, that's another that I'm still raving about.... you can read my review of that here.

 And as cliche as it may be, My Sister's Keeper - a long time favourite with a twist that I never saw coming that completely broke my heart and left me crying for hours.

While well written fiction novels can have this affect that still makes you sad when you think of the story, they really can't compare to the non-fiction novels that have the same effect. Partly because you know the non-fiction novels are true, and that the person telling the story really went through, or witnessed, all this heartache and trauma. I planned talk about these books in this post, but some of these stories touched my heart so incredibly that I feel they deserve their own post.

So they're a few of mine.... what are the fiction books that have never left you?

Reading habits

Before I moved to New York, I didn't read as much as I wanted. I'd go through a couple of books a year, I'd read now and then before bed, and if I was traveling to my hometown (90 minute plane ride each way) I'd take a book along and read as much as I could.

Consequently I didn't get many books read. That all changed when I moved to America. My first apartment was out in Newark and it would take me around an hour each way to get to work. There was just so much time sitting on trains that I was suddenly reading for two hours every day. I had bought a few books over to America with me, but within the first week in our new apartment I'd finished them all. I had a lot of difficulty joining the New York public library because of my Newark, NJ address, and I didn't particularly like the library selection at Newark public library.

Once I did join the NYPL I found the book loaning system very strange. I couldn't quite figure out exactly how it worked and it kind of made me nervous! It was one of those little American differences that I couldn't quite get around.

I asked a few people I knew if they had any books I could borrow, and while they lent me some interesting looking stories, none of them were really my genre or really captured my attention. Not only that, but these books were big and heavy.

So, naturally, I bought a Kindle. It changed my life. I could carry my Kindle with me everywhere and the amount of books I read increased dramatically. Once I moved out of Newark and moved closer to the city the amount of time I had to read decreased somewhat, so my reading pace has slowed a little, but I'm still chewing through books as quickly as I can.

What I'm wondering though, is what your reading habits are. When I'm on the train and absorbed in my book I'm in good company. In other places though, I seem to be the only one reading. Maybe I'm just a bookworm, but I'm sure I can't be alone. Once I get off the train, I can't just put my book away, at least not until I finish the chapter, so I road read. A lot of people don't understand this term. I borrowed it from The Sky Is Everywhere (which is a pretty good book y'all should read). Basically it's just walking along the road and reading. Not always safe in NYC if you forget that you have to stop for traffic. I've only ever seen one other person do it for half a block after emerging from the subway. Aside from me and my FH who got the idea from me and only did it while he was absorbed in The Game of Thrones books.

Aside from road reading, I'll occasionally read while on the cardio machines at the gym, while i'm waiting in a line for the restrooms (most commonly) or any other occasion that finds me in a long line, while I'm waiting for the train, at the laundromat or sometimes while I'm waiting for my food to arrive at a cafe or super casual restaurant. I carry my Kindle with me, where ever I go, just in case something comes up that leaves me bored for more than 2 minutes and needing something to do.

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else carry a book or e-reader with them for those lulls in the day, or read in strange places to pass the time.... or simply because they can't put the book down. I'd love to know....!

The Favourite Part

In the last week I spend 33 hours traveling. On four buses and a train. I don't know what was worse. Two buses were night buses, and anyone who has ridden a night bus before knows how horrible it is to try and sleep in a bus overnight. Unless you can fall asleep at the click of your fingers (I used to have this talent, I'm not sure where it's disappeared to...) then you arrive at your destination looking like you've walked off the set of The Walking Dead.

During some of these long trips I was sorting out my kindle. In two weeks I'm going to be embarking on a two month road trip across the United States before I move back to New Zealand. While I'm hugely excited about this trip I also know it's going to involve many, many hours of bus rides (unfortunately it's the cheapest, and most uncomfortable, way to travel). My kindle will be my best friend (not that it wasn't already).

And just slightly off topic here, I know some of you are very anti kindle, but I must stress, for me they don't replace books. I still love getting the hardcopy books, being able to flick through the pages, pour over the cover, easily flick back and forth.... but it was becoming difficult to lug heavy books with me along with my laptop, gym gear, lunch and other daily essentials on the train for an hour each way to and from work. I got a kindle for my birthday and now it goes everywhere with me. It's so lightweight and slim it hardly takes up any room, and it's meant I've started reading so much more than I used to. I've even convinced my FH to buy one which he's quite excited about.

So anyway, I was organising my collections in my kindle for hours, shuffling books around, making new 'collections' and new lists of what I want to read next when I started thinking about the whole 'book reading process'.

I was trying to figure out which part of reading a book is my favourite part.  It could be the beginning when you have the whole book full of adventure to look forward to; the middle where you're wanting to know what happens next and can't quite put the book down but you've got plenty of the book left to look forward to; the climax, when you won't let anyone talk to you because you must...keep....reading!; or just after the conflict has been resolved and the book is wrapping up, when you know you're finishing this adventure and you're almost ready to pick your next book.

I asked my FH what his favourite part is, and he said "half way through when you know there's no turning back, when it's pulled you in and you have to finish the book to know how the story ends." I do love that part too, but I'm not sure if that's my favourite part, my favourite is at the climax near the end, when the tension is so high and your head has gone all buzzy and you can't think of anything else but what is going to happen in the book. There's also the knowledge that the book is coming to and end soon and you're going to get to pick out your next book soon.

So what is your favourite part of the reading process? Is there a time when your favourite part lets you down? Perhaps it's when it's not enough of a page turner, or when the book drags, or when it doesn't quite give you the satisfaction you were looking for.... thoughts?

Non-Fiction Books that stay close to your heart

I want to talk a little bit about reading books that leave their footprint on you (so to speak). By this I mean books that have really have affected me in some way. The story has, in some way, made an impact to the point that I haven't easily been able to forget it.

This happens a lot with novels, which i'll talk about in the next few weeks, but there are a collection of other books I've read recently that have had a similar impact on me, but they're all non-fiction stories. That possibly makes them even more memorable.

The first that I read was several years ago. It's Torey Hayden's first book called One Child. Torey Hayden is a behaviour psychologist who has written a number of books about her experience helped traumatized and disturbed children. This book is about her experience with her first seriously mentally tortured child. Parts of the book - mostly those bits where you find out what has happened to the young girl, Sheila - are so horrible you'll be in tears and enraged at the same time. Other parts will turn you into the biggest preppiest cheerleader in the history of cheer as your root Sheila on. I've read a few more of Hayden's books, but this is definitely the most touching and incredible of all of her books.

 

Silent Tears is one that I'm recommending to everyone at the moment. It's basically a diary a woman kept during the years she lived in China volunteering at a Chinese orphanage. I can't get my head around the fact that this not only happened in my lifetime but just in the last few years. The conditions in these orphanages broke my heart. I wanted to adopt all of these poor children, many of them girls who were abandoned so couples could have more babies until they got boys because of the one child rule. Shocking. The book also talks about women being left by their husbands when they fail to give birth to a boy. I just can't even get my head around it. It is so barbaric, but then again, I don't fully understand the ways of their culture and no matter how hard I try, I don't think I ever will unless I go and live in China.

 

The woman who wrote this book really advocated for these kids. She worked so hard to try and encourage more American families (and others from around the world) to adopt these kids if they were looking to adopt. She helped raise money to get surgeries for the many kids with deformities, and she grew particularly attached to a number of the kids. This is a hard read, but it's a must read and I will never forget the things I took from this book.

Another book set in China that made a profound impact on me was Mao's Last Dancer. I'm sure many of you will have read this or seen the movie. It's a fantastic book which sends you on a total emotional journey. I learned a lot about China in this book, much of which really shocked me, but the journey of Li is a really incredible one, and to see how far he's come and to where he is now is astounding.

 

The final book that's really wormed its way into my head is Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall.
I started reading this book in New Zealand and was reading it as I flew to the USA, so I had no knowledge of Elissa's story or of Warren Jeffs but after this book I had a great deal of knowledge about it. This is basically the story of Elissa, an incredibly strong and brave young woman who grew up in the FDLS. She knew nothing of the 'outside world', and even after being forced to marry her first cousin (among other things), she still was fearful of what was outside the church. It's a heartbreaking and very powerful story which actually made such an impact that I reached out to Elissa to tell her how incredibly brave she is.

This book really helped me understand the life of those in cult religions such as the FDLS and to really comprehend why it is so hard for those that want to get out, to actually get out. It's an amazing story though, and also another I really recommend.

What are some non-fiction books that have really stuck with you that you can't help but recommend to everyone?

RTW: From Page to Screen...

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.
 

 

The topic this week is: What is it that makes some books seem ideal for a film translation?

 

 

This is an interesting topic for me because as I said in my post earlier this week I am a big supporter of books into films. This means, whenever I read a book I love, I'll frequently say "holy moly, that would make a GREAT movie."

So I have a few books I've read over the past year or so that I would really love to see put on the big screen, some are in the YA genre, and some are more adult novels. 

So, here's my list!

The first one was Divergent. When I was reading the book I couldn't stop saying how much I loved it and how great it would be on the screen. After I finished the novel, as I do when I finish a story I love, I googled everything about it and read Veronica Roth's blog in it's entirety. It was there that I discovered that the film rights had been sold and there was a very good chance of the film being made in the near future. (For those up with the play, it's now really moving along- there's a director and the actress who may play Tris is in final negotiations.)

For those who don't know Divergent, it's about a young girl, Tris, who's dystopian Chicago society is divided into five factions. Each faction is dedicated to a particular virtue of which the factions members must devote their life to. One each member of society reaches the age of 16 they must decide whether to remain with the faction they have grown up with, or choose another faction all together.

The second one I could imagine being made into a film is Hourglass by Myra McEntire. Again, this is actually another (amazing) book which has had the film rights sold (to Twentieth Century Fox of all places!) I guess I wasn't the only one who thought this novel would translate beautifully into film!

 Hourglass is a time travel based book which follows a 17-year-old girl who can see 'rip's'. That is, apparitions of people from the past appearing right in front of her in the current day. Naturally she thinks she's going crazy, but it turns out there's a lot more to it that she could possibly imagine. Things that could change her present, future....even her past... in extremely terrifying ways.

The third is Skylark. While I wasn't wild about the writing of this book, I really liked the premise and I'm convinced that it could work really well on screen. I can even imagine all the scenes so clearly and I know it'd be very do-able so that'd be cool!

Skylark is a novel I read primarily because part of the premise was very similar to my WIP at the time. Turns out, of course, that the actual story of Skylark was so incredibly different from my story than you could ever imagine. Once I started reading, I wanted to know more. It follows a young girl, Lark, who has never been outside her domed city. The city's dome is powered by the magic (or resource) harvested by the children of the dome. Once you're harvested you become an adult. Lark has been waiting for years to finally be chosen for harvesting, however once it's her turn, the last thing she imagined was to become the city's power supply rather than just another citizen of the city. Consequently she then has to plan an escape and discover the horrors of life outside the dome. This story was full of twists and turns I never expected, so I'd really love to see it on the big screen!

Although it's an old book, I'd really love to see The Giver made into a film as well, and maybe its sequels could be included in there somehow! That could be awesome! The Giver is, of course, one of the classic dystopian novels about a young boy who is content with his plain, black and white life. It is only when he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory that he begins to understand his world isn't quite what it seems and there are some dark and complex secrets right underneath the surface.

Aside from solid YA novels ...

I've talked about this book time and time again, but really, I love it so much. The Tea Rose. Although this book is so hefty it might be better as a mini-series. Oh, how I would love to see this on the screen! I'd love to be the one to put this on the screen! I have all the plans in my head, if only I could make it a reality!
 Read my review on The Tea Rose here.

Another would be 'A Grown Up Kind of Pretty' which is a relatively new book this year. It's not the typical book I read, but something about the cover and the premise made me pick it up and read it. Of course it hooked me in. I think it could translate quite well to the screen.

A Grown Up Kind of Pretty is a saga about three generations of women. Fifteen year old Mosey is terrified she's going to wind up pregnant at fifteen just like her mother and grandmother before her. Mosey's world is turned upside down when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard. Liza, Mosey's stroke-ravaged mother is haunted by her past and the choices she made as a teenager; and Jenny - or Big - Mosey's kind-hearted and strong grandmother who's love binds the women together and who will stop at nothing to defend the family's future.

There are so many more I could list. Any book I truly love I can typically imagine turning into a film, but at the moment these are my top picks! That's not to say that if they're made into films, they'll do the book justice. In my head I can see exactly how each of these books could be made into films, yet your ideas are probably very different from mine which is exactly why so many people are disappointed in seeing their favourite books made into films. As I said in my last post, I just accept it and enjoy it for what it is. I find it the best way to go!

What books do you think would translate well into film?

RTW: Best Book of September

Almost at the end of September? No way, Say it ain't so! And it's Wednesday, which means Road Trip Wednesday! If you're new to RTW, it's a blog hop hosted by YA Highway and is one of my favourite times of each week!
 
 This week the topic is - What is the best book you read in September

I haven't had a lot of variety in my reading this month. In fact for most of the month I've really been reading a long running series - The Pretty Little Liars books. (I'm only up to book 5 of 12 or something crazy.) I'm obsessed with the TV show, kind of sad really, but it's addictive, and this was my way of getting through the hiatus - reading the series. Quite interesting being able to compare the books to the show, the book is more like a dramatic soap opera than the show (although the show does come close at times....)! So that's been filling up my September, however there was one book that was released at the start of the month that I read in a few short days.

Origin, by Jessica Khoury, is a book that I'd been waiting for for quite a number of months. I'd read Jessica's blog, I'd read the preview in the Penguin Breathless Reads and I entered the competitions to win Arcs - I was so looking forward to reading it, and my wait paid off.

The setting of the novel was by far a stand out feature. It's set in the middle of the lush Amazon rainforest, and the descriptions of this setting really transported me into Pia's world. When I couldn't sleep my mind would take me to the rainforest. It almost had a calming effect!

I loved the fact the main character had a pet jaguar. I was insanely jealous but thought that was a super cool touch. I also liked that the story had essentially two different 'worlds'. Two different cultures, lifestyles....however you want to describe it. I liked being able to recognise the stark contrast in Pia's world with the male character, Eio's world.

There are a number of twists in the book that unless you're super alert you really won't see coming. It'll have you sitting on the edge of your seat, desperate to find out what happens next. The beginning is a little slow, BUT don't stop reading, I promise you, it's worth it. It's a really original story, with some characters you'll love, and some you'll hate. Definitely give it a try!

So that would be my best book in September, but now I'm keen to hear yours. As soon as this Pretty Little Liars series is out of the way I'll be pushing forward onto lots more so would love your suggestions!

To love a character

What is it that you admire most about your favourite character? Is it that he is made of muscle and can fly? Is it that she has a huge heart yet is much stronger (emotionally) than all the men around her? Is it that every guy falls at her feet or that inside he's a really big dork?

Maybe you love this character because he, or she, succeeds every time.... or maybe it's because he/she simply tried.

In most novels, you expect the character to succeed. It's pretty much part of the standard format. In fact, I can barely think of any characters that don't succeed (if you can think of any, I'd love to hear them!) But I don't think it's the fact the character succeeds in whatever mission he is she is trying to accomplish that makes us love them. I think it's the journey. I think it's the trying to succeed.

Take Harry Potter to start with. I love Harry Potter, we all know this by now. I read the first book when I was nine years old but I still remember how much I loved it from the very beginning of the book. That was before Harry had fought with Quirrell and Voldemort, and won. At the end of the book (I'm sorry if this is a spoiler, but really, the book has been out for fifteen years, and the book for ten years.... you've had plenty of time to catch up!) Harry succeeds in his mission. He keeps the Philosophers stone safe and Voldemort doesn't manage to kill him. Again.

But we already loved Harry. We cared whether he lived or died, we admired him for his journey in life. (And if you were like me, you were jealous he got to go to magic school.) We loved him for TRYING to figure out who was trying to steal the stone, for risking his life to protect the stone he really knew nothing about. We all knew he would most probably get the stone and live to see another day, so it wasn't the success that we were likely to admire him for. It is the journey. The trying.

In my favourite book of the year, The Tea Rose (Not a YA book, I should add, but a great book nonetheless), the main character doesn't always succeed. Spoiler alert. In fact, it leaves you a little confused. You're sitting there saying "What on earth is going on? She's the main character, she's not supposed to have this much bad stuff happen to her with no sign of good luck on the horizon." But it works. Ultimately, she does succeed (to which you'll release the breath you didn't realise you had been holding for the last 800 pages). Her success though, it's not the reason you would admire her. It's one of them, sure, because she worked very hard for that success, but it's the trying to succeed and the journey she's taken to succeed that makes you love her.

She's one of the strongest female protagonists I've come across, and she's one of my favourite female characters because of her journey. Because of what she overcomes and because she's not afraid to keep trying.

It's an interesting thought to keep in mind when you're writing. It's not the character's successes that makes us really love them, it's their journey.

What are your thoughts?

RTW: Books from school

Another Wednesday, another Road Trip! Road Trip Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by YA Highway!

This week's RTW comes as the kids of America are heading back to school. So the question - What's your favorite book that you had to read for a class?

This is a tricky one because I did read some amazing books at school. Some classic, some contemporary, some plays like Hamlet, some that I should've loved but found really hard to read like Wuthering Heights and some that I recommended to everyone, like The Tomorrow Series. 

The other reason this is a tricky question, as although it's only been seven years since I left high school, it still feel like a really long time, and I'm having trouble remembering some of the books from the earlier years. However there are some that stick out.

The first is one I would consider to be one of the best books I've ever read. I should say I hated it with a passion when I had to read it. Oh how I hated it. It's long and it's very serious.... it's almost painful. But it was worth the slog. The book is called One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

 

The book is literally that. One day in this man's life. This man, Ivan Denisovich is a prisoner of a Soviet labour camp in the 1950s and the book describes an ordinary day. It's a tough read, because it's pretty close to the truth but it's very moving and insightful. The author of the book was imprisoned in a labour camp from 1945 to 1953 for writing a derogatory comment in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, so obviously had first hand experiences of the hardships. This is one of the best books I read at school simply because of the impact it had on me. Almost ten years later and I still list it as one of the best books I've ever read....

The next book I loved was The Secret Life of Bees

In New Zealand, we don't get taught a lot of American history in school. We may brush over a few aspects like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and we may talk briefly about the Civil War or the Revolution, but we don't really study American history. In one of my classes as a 14 year old, we did, however, study the Civil Rights movement. I am a history geek, you may be able to tell. I became obsessed with learning all about the Civil Rights Movement and so enjoyed this book a lot, which we had to read as a way of getting a feel for the segregation and atmosphere of the time. Anyway, to put it simply, it's a great coming of age story about a young girl who finds herself living among a group of African American women and helping them run their honey business.  It's a great book.

Other books I feel deserve a mention - Mister Pip, The Halfmen of O series (love love love), The Handmaid's Tale (another that I only appreciated later), The Whale Rider - All these are New Zealand books! Oh also To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lovely Bones.

I'm sure there are heaps more but these were definitely some that left a lasting impression! What are yours?

 

Hooking in the audience

When I was at college I did a film studies paper. One of the first things we learned, and something that has stuck with me since then, was that filmmakers have twenty minutes to hook the audience in. After twenty minutes, if the audience hasn’t been hooked, then you’ve quite likely lost them. They’re more likely to turn off the film and find something else to do.

Talk about pressure!

With books, it’s kind of the same. There is a lot of talk about how the first lines really matter. It’s true, of course. First lines are really important for setting the tone of the book for the reader. You can tell a lot about a book from its first line, and often I’ll buy a book based on its first line and writing style.

More than that though, I think with books it’s similar to films. You have two chapters to hook the reader in. If your reader gets to the end of chapter two and is still saying “I don’t have a clue what’s going on here, I’m utterly and completely confused” then I think you have a problem.

I’m reading a novel at the moment which left me feeling the same way. I got to 20% through and I still didn’t understand what was happening. It was almost trying so hard to be captivating and mysterious that it just fell short and left me tempted to put the book down. I persevered though (a lot of people who reviewed this novel did not), and the story got much more interesting and captivating. Once I got to 60% through the book I finally cared about the characters and what was going on. The plot holes still frustrate me and I wish there was a little more insight into how the situation arose in the first place, but I care enough to want to finish the book.

This is pretty much me with my current book. Except I'm not a male. And I don't wear jumpers like that.

It goes to show how hard it is to get it right really. How do you get it right? Is there any way of pleasing everybody? The answer to that is probably not. Take Harry Potter for example. NPR recently listed the series as number one on the best ever teen novels list yet for every ten thousand people that love Harry, there is another thousand that can’t stand him.

My Dad once told me that people have differently wired brains. Techy people and arty people typically have a different kind of ‘wiring’ in their brains. It’s not to say they can’t enjoy the same things, like watching a Broadway show, listening to music or watching a sports game, it just means their brains work differently. My Dad, he’s an electrical engineer and he’s pretty good at math. Me, well I majored in Creative Industries and I’m terrible at math. During high school, Dad would spend hours trying to teach me long division and algebra because I just couldn’t get it through my head when my math teacher would explain it in front of the class.

I remember Dad saying he had a math teacher once who had a brain so mathematically wired, that he couldn’t understand how people didn’t understand. He would get frustrated at his students when they couldn’t simply pick it up after he’d explained it once or twice. The students, like me, probably had their brain wired somewhat differently that they needed everything broken down and practiced over and over before they understood. Those students though could possibly have excelled in creative writing or piano playing or art while the math teacher quite possibly could have struggled.  

This is me when I can't get my head around Trig...

I mention all this because it could come into play when reading a book. The fact that I haven’t been able to engage in this book until I’m 60% of the way through could be entirely different for someone else, someone who’s thought processes are entirely different. They might be hooked from the first sentence, whereas they might also find a book that I loved really hard to read.

So how do you combat this? I honestly, have no idea! I wish I had the answers. Then again, if I did, I’d probably be on the track to being the next J.K. Rowling by now…

It's just cute, yeah?

What do you look for in an opening line? An opening chapter or even the first quarter of a book? Do you like the ‘I’m not going to say much about what’s going on so you can try and figure it out later’ kind of thing or the ‘I know what’s going on and I like the way the story is progressing?’ I’m curious…. Do tell!