As you all know I am a heavy reader. Usually I read about a book a week and no, I have not been able to keep up with myself and keep the books I’m reading updated in the column on the right-hand side of this page (admit it you never read it and never knew it was there). The plan is to have an entire page devoted the books I’ve read, one page for every year. No, I’m not going to write a review of all of the books I read, not unless I am blown away (or the opposite reaction of “I barely kept myself from burning it before I finished it.”) I’m not even going to dignify them with a star system of how much I liked them or didn’t etc. The truth is, I know that if you wanted a review or a star system you would just go to amazon. The pages will be mostly for me, because, even though I have an excellent memory, I want to make sure I never forget the books that I’ve read.
I haven’t posted in a while.
No kidding huh? My one post a week that I managed since November of last year was blown out of the water since Joseph left me. Life happens. It’s complicated. All that bullshit. Joseph has since renounced everything he said and does wish he never left me. It all makes sense. It all makes no sense. It’s complicated. All that bullshit. Regardless. This year I am free. This is the promise I gave myself. I will no longer be tied, no longer be shackled. This year I am free. This is what I have always wanted. I didn’t get here like I wanted to. But do we ever?
This year I am free.
No grief, no happiness, no change in the wind, will change that simple fact. It is the only plan I will make in 2010. This year I am free. That is the best thing I have ever heard in my whole life. I have never been free. Gone from a bastard father to a nice guy that meant well but who did what all guys do anyway and, of course, felt terrible about it. I believe now that most men are cowards, especially the nice ones, and they will all destroy whoever and whatever they have to to hide that fact.
All men are liars and thieves, the good ones just feel bad about it.
Are you a man? Welcome to the first generation of men who are actually learning that life is unfair. Women have known this fact for two thousand years, if not longer. I have no pity for you, as I have none for women either. It is a rare dead when we’re not all dealt something we don’t deserve. In fact, if you haven’t been dealt something that you absolutely didn’t deserve, than I haven’t met you yet.
I sound contrite and I hate that. You may not believe me but these have been my views for as long as I can remember. All I am suffering now is complete and total gut-wrenching disappointment that my pessimistic and very cold opinions turned out to be relatively true. I am a Tiger according to the Chinese Zodiac and I do live up to my name.
The books I write are all about strong women who crush unfair assholes beneath their boots. It is no wonder. They are the only women I can truly respect.
I have reached almost 20,000 words in my sequel and I am very excited about it. However, I have begun reading what are considered two of the greatest fantasy fiction series of all time. Truly they make my writing look like that of a fifth grader, it disheartening but I will learn from them. Earlier this year I read the first four books of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I was blown away, could not put them down, and it almost killed me not to spend my last dollar for the remaining books in the series. My financial troubles have become the bane of my existence. And, it seems, I am not alone, it seems in fact that the entirety of the Unites States is with me. So I can’t complain. But that added to the last four weeks of my life means that I am still smoking a little. My mom and everyone else I know was in a constant state of total bitchiness (men and women both) but there has been a turn in the weather, quite literally. It was over eighty-five degrees here in Minnesota yesterday and I can tell you, it helped.
This year I am free.
So, my financial troubles are bothering me less. I am happier and sadder than I have ever been in my life. I am farther from suicide that I have ever been in my life but I am also closer to tears, though I am all dried up from tears, I still feel like crying every now again, though I don’t want to admit it. Because I’m happy here. No regrets and I know that that is something I have never been able to say. Through all of the unfairness that I’ve been handed and the just, out-right cruelty, I don’t want to take any of it back. That is, by itself, amazing to me. I have lived forever wanting to take everything but, my whole life, even when none of it was my fault. I don’t want to take any of it back. In fact, if I look back I will be lost. I am glad it’s over and I am so excited to move on and finally be free. I am just so relieved that I got out of it in tact, that I didn’t lose my spirit, or my soul, or my heart, I am so relieved that it’s over. That I did not compromise who I needed to stay to be happy, to be able to still respect myself in the morning. I’m still here and now I am truly free.
After I finished the first four books of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King I read the next book that I didn’t have to buy. My mom got me the first book of the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. I read that first book and though I was able to hold myself back from buying the last of the Dark Tower series (because I had only forty two dollars to my name at that point) I could not hold back from buying the last three books of the series A Song of Ice and Fire. I have no doubt that it is the greatest fantasy series of all time and if you like fantasy fiction in any way you are doing yourself a grave miss-service if you do not follow the link and buy them all immediately. I have not been left so awe-struck by a book in a long time, maybe not ever and yes, of course, I have read The Hobbit and a dozen other of the greatest fantasy authors of all time. None of them compare. Follow the link, give A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin a shot. It will blow you away.
These are the books every writer should have in their library. They are here in no particular order and I have included a link to Amazon (because if you’re a writer you should buy them) and a review. I am going to be adding to this post as the books come my way, these are the books right now that influenced me the most.
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Review by Amazon.com
Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King’s On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You’re right there with the young author as he’s tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London’s. It’s a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. “I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash.” But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of “I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.” As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife’s intervention, which he describes). “There’s one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing.”
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer’s “tool kit”: a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft’s arcane vocabulary, Hemingway’s leanness, Grisham’s authenticity, Richard Dooling’s artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman’s sentence fragments. He explains why Hart’s War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool could be the antidote.
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Review By Christopher B. Jonnes
When I write a book I use only a handful of reference tools: dictionary, thesaurus, Gregg’s Reference Handbook, Writers Market, and the Elements of Style. Strunk and White is a wonderfully-written, extraordinarily concise tool that pays homage to classic high-end English. It takes language insight to make this prediction in 1979: “By the time this paragraph makes print, uptight… rap, dude, vibes, copout, and funky will be the words of yesteryear.” The book begins with eleven “Elementary Rules of Usage,” and then continues with eleven more “Elementary Rules of Composition,” and eleven “Matters of Form.” Each is presented as a brief statement followed by another sentence or two of explanation and a few clarifying examples. This amazing compilation fills only thirty-eight pages, yet covers ninety percent of good writing fundamentals. My favorite section is Chapter IV, a twenty-seven-page, alphabetical listing of commonly misused words and expressions. Here’s a trade secret: when my manuscript is “done,” I then turn to this chapter and use my word processor’s Find function to study every instance of all these problematic words and phrases. I never fail to find errors this way. Many great writers are so only because they’ve learned to make use of the best available tools. The end of the book contains an essay on “An Approach to Style” with a list of twenty-one “Reminders.” Those who fight the apparently-natural tendency to go against these recommendations succeed as writers. Those who don’t, fail. It’s that simple. The single drawback of The Elements of Style is that it’s too concise; it does not stand alone as an all-encompassing tutorial or reference guide. Many readers will seek other sources for more in-depth explanation of style elements. Despite that, it easily replaces ten pounds of other reference material.
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Review by Publishers Weekly
Lamott’s ( Operating Instructions ) miscellany of guidance and reflection should appeal to writers struggling with demons large and slight. Among the pearls she offers is to start small, as their father once advised her 10-year-old brother, who was agonizing over a book report on birds: “Just take it bird by bird.” Lamott’s suggestion on the craft of fiction is down-to-earth: worry about the characters, not the plot. But she’s even better on psychological questions. She has learned that writing is more rewarding than publication, but that even writing’s rewards may not lead to contentment. As a former “Leona Helmsley of jealousy,” she’s come to will herself past pettiness and to fight writer’s block by living “as if I am dying.” She counsels writers to form support groups and wisely observes that, even if your audience is small, “to have written your version is an honorable thing.”
Review by Betty Trapp
This author is a new find for me, but I will surely read much more of her. She is fabulously funny, incredibly informative, and absolutely generous with her thoughts and feelings and expertise on writing. The book warmed me, and made me feel that I could continue my writing with a stronger and better perspective. For aspiring writer’s everywhere, and for writers published and not, this book will take you on a journey and offer invaluable advice for your hard work. It will help you revive that natural urge to write and keep you plugging away at the keyboard during the very worst of slumps. You will also laugh with Anne Lamott, the author, who is hilarious and honest and very witty. The practical and real life advice will stay with you as you struggle to become the writer you already are.
