What I’m Reading February 26, 2009

My husband and I are both off from work today, so while he finishes his nap (he worked graveyard shift last night) I’m sitting here with a cup of my favorite tea and a pile of books. I have several books I want to/need to finish reading in the next week, because I decided to try out a mystery book club that meets at my local library. Besides those, I have a couple books that were recently given to me and some research books to read. Whew! So here we go. I may write reviews of these once I’ve finished them.

The Darkest Evening of the Year, by Dean Koontz. The story centers around a golden retriever rescue operation, as far as I can tell, hence my desire for the book. My sweet husband gave it to me along with a lovely card and box of Godiva chocolate for Valentine’s Day.

Passionate Housewives Desperate for God, by Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald. This was given to me by my dear friend Theresa for my birthday after we’d discussed it a little.

B is for Burglar and O is for Outlaw, both by Sue Grafton. These are a couple books for the mystery book club. I’ve read one of Sue Grafton’s alphabet series before and wasn’t all that thrilled (quite a bit of language and sexuality – blah, I just wanted the mystery, please), but I thought I could at least  start a couple others. I’ll just skip them if they’re not any good. While I don’t mind language in books when it is for good cause (i.e., bad guy realism or an intense situation) it really irks me when swear words are used in place of what should have been a broader vocabulary on the part of the author. Anyway, we’ll see.

Hancock Park, by Katherine V. Forrest. Also for the book club. I have no clue about this author or her writing style, so it should be interesting.

The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction, edited by Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B Swanson-Davies. I picked this up because Glimmer Train is such a highly thought of literary magazine. So far it’s proven to be interesting, and the first chapter actually gave me a lightbulb on what to do with the point-of-view in my WIP.

Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I’ve read one other book by her (Strong Poison), and loved it. She wrote mysteries set in the early 1900s, and her Lord Peter Wimsey character is awesome. I’m guessing this one will be just as good. Even if it’s not, Strong Poison is definitely worth checking out.

Dog Man, by Martha Sherrill. This is an autobiography/history of how the Akita breed survived through World War II in Japan. Since I’m in love with the breed, I wanted to read the story.

Also reading a short history on Germany to help with my genealogy research.

Whew! I think that’s quite enough for right now. I can’t be grateful enough that we now live close to a substantial library system! If anyone else has read these, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Words, Words, Words February 21, 2009

Today’s editing is going hard. See, I decided a secondary character needed to be deleted. Completely. She was cluttering up my story, or maybe confusing it would be a better term. Buuuut…there was almost an entire chapter sort of based off her, and despite needing to be rid of her, I really needed the events of that chapter. Guh. So I’m trying to straighten out that mess.

My point of view was kind of awkward as well. My MC was prone to long, inward rants. I think part of that was me trying to get inside her head enough for the reader to hear her thoughts without actually writing in first person. So I’m deleting most of the soliloquies and trying for a very close, limited third person POV. We’ll see how that goes.

Now I’m getting a bit impatient with all the editing and wanting to get back to writing the rest of the story. However, I don’t go back to work until tomorrow afternoon, so I’m hoping I can have these six chapters 95% edited by then and can give myself permission to get on with it.

Links February 19, 2009

This is a cool article about naming your characters. The author’s writing blog is one you don’t want to miss, either.

Great blog for those of us wanting to eventually be published.

I love having my own library catalogued.

While I don’t use FanStory myself, I was reminded of it again by an e-mail this week. Some may find it very enjoyable and useful for critques and learning.

FundsforWriters is another great resource (mainly for non-fiction writers). Check out the e-books. The founder also keeps a blog.

Of course, the Christian Writers Guild is also an excellent resource. Just don’t let them tell you that there’s only one way to write a selling book, and they are (obviously) bent to Christian books.

Victoria Gaines is always putting up inspiring authorly quotes.

I recently discovered Bookmarks Magazine. Awesomeness.

Yup, the old fall-back of Writer’s Digest. Sometimes a little snotty in tone, but with excellent resources and articles.

For keeping up with all those blogs: Google Reader. My favorite, it’s clean and simple and it works.

The WIP February 15, 2009

I’ve reached a minor break in my story. The next part is going to be really fun to write, but my first part is so mixed up that I’ve decided to edit it first. So I’ve sent the first six chapters to my very honest but very kind critiquer – my husband. I love editing. Something about honing the words, the characters, and the story is oh-so-satisfying to my OCDness. I think I’ve worked out a good system for editing (for me, anyway). Instead of just working on one file, whenever I start a new round of editing I copy the file into a new one and number it. That way if I decide I like the way something sounded in an earlier edit, I can just go back and copy/paste. This is probably old hat to a lot of folks, but I just had the brilliant discovery in the past couple weeks. *blush* My word count is also going down, from 17,523 to 16,242 so far, and I’ve only gone through the first two chapters. It makes me wince a little, but I think the project is really benefiting from the shave. Still, this is a very light edit, not the ruthless chopping I’ll do when the entire thing is finished.

Editing is always good for a few laughs too, of course. Like when I discovered I had my MC draining a glass of milk at one point, then a of couple pages later emptying the same glass. Haha. Le husband caught one too – I mentioned that the pantry and cabinets in the house are bare of food, yet the MC is washing breakfast dishes. Doh! These are always facepalm moments, but they make me laugh.

Then there are the times I bang my head on the desk and wonder if I’ll ever break some old habits. Like constantly repeating words, sometimes as often as in the same sentence. Or writing things like, “Suddenly taken by impulse.” Um.

So how do you edit? A lot of people will disagree with my decision to start editing partway through a novel project, especially since my one goal with this project is just to finish a book-length work. But, it’s working for me. The discrepancies and errors in the first part were bothering me and hindering my continued writing. I have to go back and untangle the mess before I can go on. What works for you?

Shelfari 50 Book Challenge Update February 9, 2009

1. The Hollow – Agatha Christie
2. Murder is Easy – A. C.
3. Murder on the Links – A. C.
4. By the Pricking of My Thumbs – A. C.
5. The Man in the Brown Suit – A.C. – my favorite Agatha Christie book thus far
6. The A.B.C. Murders – A. C.
7. The Body in the Library – A. C.
8. Evil Under the Sun – A. C.
9. A Murder is Announced – A. C.
10. Third Girl – A. C.
11. The Moving Finger – A. C.
12. Murder on the Orient Express – A. C.
13. Endless Night – A. C.
14. The Unexpected Guest – A. C.
15. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – A. C.
16. Merlin – Stephen R. Lawhead
17. Arthur – S. R. L.
18. Eyes at the Window – Evie Yoder Miller – so far the most boring book I’ve read this year
19. King’s Ransom – Jan Beazley and Thom Lemmons
20. The Dante Club – Matthew Pearl
21. The Poe Shadow – M. P.
22. Violet Dawn – Brandilynn Collins
23. The Shadow Within – Karen Hancock – I love all the books I’ve read by her so far, enough to buy them all. I’m waiting to read the rest in the Guardian King series until I can buy them, and eagerly awaiting her next book.
24. Laddie – ?
25. White Fang - Jack London
26. The Call of the Wild – J. L.
27. Scars and Stripes – Lt.Col. (ret) Red McDaniel – awesome book, should be required reading for high school American history
28. The Dog Who Would Be King – John C. Wright
29. James Herriot’s Dog Stories – James Herriot
30. All Creatures Great and Small – J. H.
31. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield – very intriguing, I’m hoping she writes more books
32. Plain Truth – Jodi Picoult
33. Inkheart - Cornelia Funke – lovely children’s book, some adult readers complain of lack of character depth, but I loved it
34. No Graves As Yet – Anne Perry
35. Shoulder the Sky – A. P.
36. Angels in the Gloom – A. P.
37. At Some Disputed Barricade – A. P.
38. Murder Among the Owls – Bill Crider
39. The Writing Class – Jincy Willett – neat book, with an interesting story line
40. Way Down Dead in Dixie – Caroline Cousins
41. Shabby Chic – Rachel Ashwell
42. Strong Poison – Dorothy L. Sayers – I’ve found another good mystery writer, W00T!
43. When Men Become Gods – Stephen Singular
44. The Good Guy – Dean Koontz
45. The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart - M. Glenn Taylor – Do NOT recommend this one at all, it’s well written, but much too explicit, IMO
46. Second Chances – Elise Lufkin
47. A Year of Pleasures – Elizabeth Berg
48. Family Skeletons – Rhett MacPherson
49. James Herriot: Life of a Country Vet – Graham Lord
50. Must Love Dogs – Claire Cook

THERE! I got to 49 and thought, “No way! I know I read more than that!” In fact, though I read several non-fiction books this year, there’s only a few of them on that list. So I suceeded in my challenge, I was just a month late in posting about it. I’ve always been horrible about keeping  booklist. This year I used Shelfari a little, and counted on my library automatic reading list to kep up with the rest. I’m pretty sure I read some others, but I can’t think of them right now and this was all that was on the lists, so here ’tis.

Note: I don’t recommend all of these. Most were okay, but a few had elements some readers will find objectional.