Books

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson: My Thoughts and Impressions

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I just finished listening to Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy on audio today and I absolutely loved it.Furiously Happy is a memoir about Lawson’s life; specifically her struggles with mental illness which she explores with amusing essays featuring her blog, her family, and her life.

It is exactly as she described it: a funny book about horrible things, and for anyone who suffers from mental illness,  like depression or social anxiety, it is an easily relatable book and comforting when you learn how the author counters her illness.51Z3ZotTWfL__SX329_BO1,204,203,200_

Some of my impressions:

You can’t take yourself too seriously.

That much is obvious. You have a bad day, you embarrass yourself, you cry about it, but you move on. There are many things that happen in her life that I would be mortified about but she seems to have master the knack for laughing about it sometime down the road.

She relies on family and the comfort of friends.

Relying on the comfort of loved ones on those really down days is a good option. You feel so alone inside, but you don’t have to be physically alone. Loved ones are there to provide support when you need it.

She has mastered the art of pretending.

She is good friends with Neil Gaiman who gave her some great advice when she was having doubts about being able to read her own book on audio. She told him she wasn’t any good at it, and he told her (something along the lines of), “pretend that you are good at it.”

Take a deep breath and step forward.

It’s not always easy to move forward when your mind is telling you that you can’t possibly leave the house right now, because then you’ll have to talk to people and sometimes there are days when that is just exhausting. In that case…

Learn how to push yourself.

Even when it is very difficult;  because the rewards are worth it in the end.

And that’s it really.  I’ll probably end up listening to it again in a few days. I found it a great comfort and relief to know that I shouldn’t have to make excuses for myself on my bad days. Because those that also experience the same things that I do, completely understand.

What do you guys think? Have you read or listened to Furiosuly Happy? What were your thoughts on it?

 

A Year’s Worth of Books

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Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Today is a quiet and lazy day. I am worn out from the last few days, and so I am relaxing in front of the fan in my office and thinking about what to write. I was able to have lunch today with a friend, and she gave me this little book where you can record the books you’ve read and what you think of them.

img_20160530_151420369.jpgIt reminded me of what I did last year around this time. In the post I listed all the books I was able to read in five months and what I thought of them. This time its been longer, though. This is really for my benefit, mostly, as I have a terrible memory.

What could I have possibly read in a year??

Here we go, and in no particular order…

Audio Books I’ve listened to:

American Sniper, by Chris Kyle

Call the Midwife, by Jennifer Worth

I Was Here, Gayle Forman

Matched, by Ally Condie

Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Alchemyst, The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer, by Michael Scott

The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, by James Dashner

The Color Magic, by Terry Pratchett

The Long Earth, The Long War, The Long Mars, by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter

The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert

A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, by Brian Grazer

Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide, by Peter Allison

img_20160426_163707562_hdr.jpgAnd other books, not on audio:

The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater

The Iron Warrior, by Julie Kagawa

Winter, Fairest, by Marissa Meyer

Hmm…not a bad list, although its clear I need to read more books that aren’t on audio. I think its time to focus on reading some more adult fiction, non-fiction and science fiction and fantasy. And this doesn’t include the Harry Potter series that a listened to again this year on audio. (I think I have an obsession!)

What do you guys like to read? Read anything new recently?

Happy writing (and reading)!

There’s Always Time for More Books

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So, a week or so ago, I strained a muscle on the right side of my back. I am now in physical therapy for it, (which in itself is a whole new realm of pain,) but boy, you never realize how much all the muscles are interconnected! And since I am right-handed, every time I use my right hand, it makes my whole arm hurt…

Anyway, yesterday, I ran out of my strong pain meds, and while on errands, and although I felt like someone was stabbing a sharp instrument into the muscle in my back, we stumbled upon this cute book shop not far from our house.

It was a used book shop full of old and rare books, and every corner of the small shop was jammed packed with all sorts of old treasures. The owner of the shop greeted us when we walked in, and the door did a small jingle as it shut behind us. The first book I picked up was published in 1901, and I felt my heart beat with excitement.

I could barely move from the pain, but I couldn’t wait to find a new book, or an old one, or just something to spark the imagination, to take myself to some different world, to a magical realm of my very own. I like the smell of old books, too. I like the smell of the pages…all dusty, ink and possibilities.

“Let me know if I can help you find something,” said the shop owner; an old man of retirement age, with white hair and beard, intelligent eyes and a shirt that read, ‘There’s always room for more books.’

And suddenly I could picture it: I would come here on Saturday afternoons and look for books. One rainy afternoon I would strike up a conversation with the old man about antique books, which would then lead into a conversation about favorite authors, and then writing; and then next thing I know, a month later its like Tuesdays with Morrie for us…he’s my new writing mentor and that’s that. He’ll be my sudden spark of inspiration, my friend, my encouragement…all because I stumbled into his shop one blustery April afternoon.

Michael’s voice interrupts my thoughts, though, while I’m standing there dumbly in the wonderfully warm book shop. “Babe, we got to leave. We won’t have time to get your pain meds before my appointment.”

Me: (hopefully)  “Five more minutes?”

For the record, we didn’t have time to stop at the store before Michael’s eye appointment, but it inspired this blog post.

There’s always time for books…even if you are in pain…because for me, books are a medicine of a different kind, and I love it!

Hope you guys are having a great weekend!

Happy Writing!

Self Doubts and Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel, Big Magic

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Had a busy weekend this past time around. It was the other half’s birthday, PLUS Easter, so most of Sunday and Monday was spent away from home, so except for Saturday, I didn’t get much writing done.

I sat down at my desk on Saturday with the intention of working on the story…you know the one I told you guys all about? The one where I’m going to kill off one of my favorite characters? (gulp). Annd…of course, I ran into another snag.

You ever sit there and re-read what you’ve written and think to yourself: It’s crap. It’s total crap. It’s never going to come together. I’m sitting here just fooling myself. What am I doing? Why bother? I’m not as good as I think I am…

I listened to the doubts and I ran away from the computer and probably got a snack, (because that’s what I do lately, I stress eat.) And I didn’t get back to writing. I might have written a few paragraphs…if even.

I told my friend about it today at work and she reminded me of the fact that we all have those doubts, and it’s just a first draft, so you can always go back and re-work it. Which, of course, makes sense…but…its amazing how much a tiny bit of doubt is so crippling.

I recently listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and I think of that now. If you haven’t read it and need some writing encouragement, I suggest you check it out. The audio is great, too, as Gilbert herself reads it. It’s amazing. I could probably do several more blog posts just talking about that novel, and hey, I probably will, someday, but that’s not the point.

In the novel, she talks about how a lot of writers listen to the voice, that negative voice that tells us we are no good, that we are worthless, that our stuff is crap, and that we should just crawl back into our hole.

She mentions how some writers feel like they need permission to be a writer, that we almost need someone to tell us that yes, you are a writer, and that its okay to create, to fail, to have doubts…

Now, I’m just paraphrasing of course, and I probably twisted her words a bit, (I’m not good without a physical copy of the book in front of me,) but then she grants us permission to be a writer, and I love this!

I like this thought of permission to be a writer. We all know, that in reality, we don’t NEED permission to create, but boy, do those doubts tell us otherwise! They tell us that we really are nothing and shame on us for trying! I love how Gilbert gets to the heart of the matter with just those few words.

The doubts make us feel like we aren’t worthy, but that’s so untrue! And by telling us that we have permission right off the bat, makes me realize how silly doubting can be, and I want none of that!

I’m sure more doubts will creep in down the road, (they are bound to, it’s me,) buut, I am reminded of this ludicrous idea: that I need permission to create. As if anyone can stop my creative process?! As if I can’t create when I want to?!

I love the challenge that Gilbert inadvertently creates with her words. Me? Need permission to create? Yeah, right! I’ll do what I want!

It’s so much easier to be the self-righteously offended, than to let those doubts creep in.

Have you guys read Gilbert’s new novel? Any thoughts on it? Do you ever have doubts, too?

Hope everyone has a great night! Happy Writing!

When Your Favorite TV shows Crop Up in Your Story telling

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I’ve been watching a lot of Downton Abbey lately. Truth be told, I got a little behind on my episodes, and with the news that the series had their final season, I had to watch it for myself and see how it was. (Note, I still haven’t watched the full 6th season, so no spoilers yet!)

DA6_-Season_Release_655x300Which brings me to my next point: do you guys have trouble writing dialogue for your characters after watching a particular show or movie?

If I watch too much Downton Abbey and then try to write after, my characters are suddenly very posh and polite to each other and start to use phrases that are more fitting to 1920s English, than a fantasy story set in an unknown time period. (Although, I suppose this might be okay if the genre were steampunk…which it is not.)

Anyway, another show I can’t watch a lot of before writing is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love Joss Whedon, but his characters in any of his shows definitely have what we call Whedon-speak, and if I try writing after listening to them, my characters suddenly start talking in adverbs and every phrase or emphasis has an ‘ly’ added to the end of it.

Even now, I can hear myself speaking in the very precise and almost cold voice of Lady Mary from Downton Abbey…and I have a bit of a laugh, because that’s not my voice at all, but it is what it is. Serves me right for watching back to back episodes tonight and trying to write!

It’s funny how some of our favorite characters influence our writing, and an even greater inspiration when you think of the great writers behind them.

Do you guys have any TV shows/books/movies that influence your writing or the dialogue of your characters? I’d love to hear about it!

Happy Writing!

 

Should Old Documents Be Preserved Electronically?

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A few days ago at work, I had the opportunity to work with some very old documents. Usually in data entry, when you have a client that wants something scanned and recorded into a computer system, you have to first prep the documents. This means taking staples out, mending holes in paper with tape, and stamping to make sure no document gets missed.

The documents were over a hundred years old and so, instead of the usual staples we were used to, they had been skewered with metal brackets, and taped and threaded and in our interest in prepping these documents for preservation, we basically had to destroy them.

I felt bad about it, which is why I’m writing about it now. I like to collect antique books, so any document to me that is old and dusty is a treasure, and more than likely full of history of some kind…if not a history of its own.

So, it broke my heart a bit, that in the interest of scanning, and preserving something, (at least technologically,) here we were cutting, tearing, taping, and ripping apart old bindings, and taking apart of a piece of history that seemed better left on its own.

I don’t understand the need to scan something into thin air if you have something to touch and smell, a piece of evidence to a piece of history long forgotten. Now, I’m not saying that these old documents were anything of value, but I feel like anything in the past has at least some value. At least to me.

Many of the documents had been worn down with time, which made them hard to read when you were sitting in front of them, what makes putting them into a computer any better?

Perhaps with more careful prep work, old documents in other companies don’t get the abuse that they did in mine. Maybe they have better tools than we do, I don’t know.

Anyway, it has just been something that has been bugging me the last few days. Call me crazy, but I like antique documents and it kind of broke my heart a bit to see them so mistreated.

Do you think that in the interest of preserving antiques, either documents or something else, that we actually destroy them?

Just something to think about.

Why J. K. Rowling is My Hero

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My much-used Harry Potter books. :P

My much-used Harry Potter books. 😛

The other day I was thinking about how much I admire J. K. Rowling; how I tend to think of her lately as my own creative writing hero, how much I admire her writing style, her books, and her determination.

I admire her because she is such an inspiration. Most of us know her story; she was a single mom living on benefits, and while she was struggling to get by and in the years previous, she created a novel: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she had a story that she wanted to tell, characters that she loved and she created a home for them.

I have a friend at work who likes to write like me, and every time I ask him about his story, he gives a sigh of frustration and says that he can’t seem to finish what he has done, and that it’s taken him four years to get a rough draft finished.

“Four years?” I always reply, “It took J.K. Rowling about ten.”

To this he gets a thoughtful expression and then, “I didn’t know that.”

I think a lot of writers put too much pressure on themselves, (myself especially) and we forget that greatness doesn’t happen overnight, it doesn’t always happen to everyone, but if we have a story that we love and that we want to write, we can’t forget that story. We can’t give up on it.

J.K. Rowling is my hero because she didn’t give up on Harry Potter, even though things in life, new jobs, relationships and heartbreak sometimes get in the way. She might have had doubts, she might have thought that it was useless, but she kept writing, and because she kept writing she kept true to herself.

I sometimes forget how empty it feels when a writer doesn’t write. How much of myself I miss when I don’t see my true voice down on the page. (As you might guess, I’m not always the most articulate when it comes to having to explain myself by actually speaking.)

But J.K. Rowling is my hero because she wasn’t afraid to love her characters so much that she took ten years to write their story. She could have forgotten about it, she could have stopped writing – just imagine it: would you want to live in a world where Harry Potter doesn’t exist?

I must admit, I get a bit sick feeling thinking about this…kind of like when people say Star Wars and Star Trek are the same thing (shudders) what a cold a dismal world we would live in!

Anyway, I must mention J.K. Rowling at least once in every other blog post, but I think she is worthy of admiration. She is a great writer, a great story-teller, and an inspiration to anyone that has an idea that we can’t let go.

Keep writing everyone! That’s all we can do!

NaNoWriMo Day 1: My Story and More Planning

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It is 8:35 p.m. on this Nov. the 1st.  My word count is: 703 , and I’ve managed to do some story planning and plotting in the last two hours and a half.

I’ve also managed to create a NaNoWriMo account, which I haven’t done in several years. Not since the early college days.

I don’t remember how to do anything on the website anymore, so setting up my account, my profile info, and my novel info, took a good thirty minutes and now I’m left here wondering: how do you add buddies again?

Speaking of which…if you guys are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, my username is amandagrey1 the same on here, so add me if you want!

It’s important that us writing people stick together. Especially me. Considering how long it took me just to get online to create an account. I am such a terrible procrastinator…

Give me a goal to make and a deadline, and suddenly I find all the excuses in the world to do everything else. It’s not like I don’t want to create my story, I guess when it comes down to it, it is always the fear of the expectations.

I don’t like creating things that are bad. I don’t like the idea of failing…on anything, really. So, once again…its that same old writer’s fear…

But the point is, I’m sitting down to do something now and that’s better than nothing.

Just a cute dragon pic I colored the other day. Thought it might give me some kind of inspiration for my story.

Just a cute dragon pic I colored the other day. Thought it might give me some kind of inspiration for my story.

My story is a young adult fantasy novel about a young prince, whose royal family has the ability to change into dragons. For years, the dragons and the witches and wizards of the country have been at odds with each other. Years ago, the witches and wizards were banished from the kingdom and magic was forbidden. But all that is about to change.

I left my description on my NaNo account deliberately vague, and I’m leaving it vague here as well, because, one, I’m still working out the kinks and, two, I’m very protective of my original ideas.

I guess I’m just slightly paranoid when it comes to that. Especially considering how many different ideas there are out there. Everyone hopes that their idea is original, and who knows…maybe mine is. I guess I’m just paranoid. Plus, its kind of hard to explain a novel that you’re still working out.

Anyway, back to the grindstone, and maybe I can churn out more words on the page in the next half an hour or so. I’m so proud of myself! Perhaps locking myself in my office was a good idea after-all…

Everyone having a great first day of NaNoWriMo?

Happy Writing!

Saturday Musings: Books and More Books!

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wpid-img_20150829_143915630_hdr.jpgWas doing some cleaning around the apartment this afternoon, and thought I’d take a pic of all the books I collected from my bedroom.

This is just from the bedroom, people. I found books in my top dresser drawer, books on the floor, books on top of my jewelry box, and books next to my hamper. If you say I need a bookcase in my bedroom, I’d say you’d probably be right.

wpid-img_20150829_160952502.jpg

(Bookcase in office)

I’ve now come to the conclusion, that maybe I need a bookcase in every room, because it is clear that I love books! The top shelf of this bookcase are mostly books that I’ve purchased within the last month or so.

For all you book lovers out there, (especially young adult fiction readers) I recommend picking up An Ember in the Ashes, by Sabaa Tahir, and Maggie Steifvater’s The Raven Boys (and sequels that follow) as well as, The Scorpio Races.

Maggie Stiefvater is my favorite author, and Ember in the Ashes is a new favorite. Its got romance, an intense dystopian world and real at-risk action here.

Lately, I’ve also liked checking out non-fiction and autobiographies. I think its because its so inspiring reading real-life stories, and triumphs.

Why do I love books so much?

I think it has something to do with the fact that you can go anywhere you want and never leave your chair, or bed, or couch, or wherever you like to curl up and read a good book.

A good book can take you places.

Knowledge is power. When you read you learn, and there is no limit when it comes to reading. You can read whatever you want, wherever you want, and be inspired.

Sometimes when you have all these things going for you, reading a good book is like discovering something magical. And I just love that!

What do you like to read?

Terry Pratchett and Questioning Gender roles in Fantasy Literature

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I’ve been listening to Terry Pratchett’s The Slip of the Keyboard at work recently; it’s basically a collection of essays about his life, writing and his struggles with Alzheimer’s.

pi7KxKpdTIn one of his essays, he mentions how women are portrayed in fantasy. If there is a witch, she is generally evil and crouches around like an old hag, spitting curses at everyone. If she is beautiful, she is seductive, using her sexuality as a means to an end. (I think many Disney villains can be used as an example here: Ursula, Wicked Step Mother, Malificent, etc.)

Gandalf-2On the opposite scale are the Wizards, who are male, wise, and that mentor that most protagonists seek out in times of great peril. Think Gandolf in Lord of the Rings, or Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea.

I guess my question is: Why is this so?

One of my own stories has a witch as its main villain, and I inadvertently made her beautiful, seductive and evil. I did this without thought, yet I’m wondering if this isn’t the time to mix it up a bit? Isn’t it time we had an evil wizard? Or a kind, yet sexy witch, who is not evil?

(J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books don’t really count in this musing, I suppose. As plenty of her witches are very nice, beautiful intelligent people. And Voldemort, a.k.a most evil wizard, ever.)

One thing I love about Terry Pratchett’s writing is that he doesn’t write characters that are predictable. Everyone (of the characters I’ve read so far) are unique and one of a kind. They don’t fit a basic formula, and they aren’t comfortable, which is completely fine. By comfortable, I mean you don’t always know what you can expect from them: one minute they might be performing an act of heroism, the next, you might question their sanity a bit.11751426_10203753735158590_4103356951849478425_n

The point: Terry Pratchett creates real characters that don’t fit into the formula of basic hero and that’s fine. (He also made the point that not all best-selling fantasy books are the best written either.)

This is something I agree with. But I guess what gets me is this whole idea of how women are portrayed in Fantasy. If she is a witch in some stories, why do we assume she is evil?

Do we automatically assign gender roles to specific aspects of fantasy? Do we like when witches are evil? Is the old hag expected to bring bad news? Or is this what we’ve just seen time after time, and so, we use examples of literature before us and think: ‘this the way it’s supposed to be.’

Or, if these gender roles are missing in the novel, does that automatically make it more unique than others? Just a thought.

What do you guys think? Any examples you can think of?