I'm looking forward to filling this time with many things (mostly things aged 9, 4 and 2), but one of them is reading for the purpose of becoming a better writer. I'm probably not going to read more, because I hope to write more, but I am going to read with a new lens. I find myself thinking about the pacing, the timelines, the character introductions, the continuity, the adverbs, rather than just enjoying the characters and story. And I compare. How is this like my writing, and how should mine be more like this, or is this not at all what I'm aiming for? I know I need to find a writing group to ping with questions like this, but for now, dear book club, I have you. So here goes.
Letters to the Lost
Novel by Iona Grey
Just as I both liked and disliked this book, I gleaned insights about what I do and don't want for my own writing. With a two part story line, set in contemporary and WW II era England, and the converging lives of a 1940's pastor's wife and an abused bar singer on the run from her ex-boyfriend, this seems to be right up my alley. I love that kind of story, for the quickness of the pacing and the variety of settings and different types of characters allowed by switching time periods. I do strive to do this in my own writing and saw some clever ways of making the story arcs cross over each other. I also admired the descriptions of the various spaces in the story: beautiful, sacred, neglected, impoverished, elaborate...the rendering of the settings lent itself well to the story, and I want to work on that. What dissatisfied me, and makes me eager to avoid in my own writing, is the convenience of certain plot conventions and character traits. The characters changed too quickly to reflect real relationships and the way we learn from mistakes, and the coincidences that ironed out kinks in the plot were too easily plopped in the characters' paths. I'm all for a happy ending but it doesn't have to be a Hollywood happy ending, you know? Lesson learned
Language Arts
Novel by Stephanie Kallos
Kallos is a Seattle author and I really enjoyed her first novel, Broken for You. She writes very realistic, rounded characters who are chipped in places but resilient. This one is about an English teacher, divorced and lonely, with an autistic son, who seems sort of in a midlife crisis but is really more asking and answering why his life is what it is. It's a convoluted story line, mostly about one year of the main character's childhood and present time, but with other voices and even some technical writing mixed in. I think because of the journalistic tone of some of the writing, it was off-putting to me. I almost quit this one but I had to have some questions answered. Yes, I skimmed the ending when I was about halfway through, like I often do, but this time it wasn't because I needed reassurance about characters I love. I needed to know it was going someplace. And it was, and it was a good place, so I'm glad I finished it. Is it something I want to write? No. I like Kallos's thoughtfulness and want someday to write more serious, yet still entertaining, literature like her. But it's maybe a bit too staid for me. I found myself drawn to the scenes of real places, though, and want to emulate that sense of place, as well as her obvious writing from what she knows, which is Seattle and teaching and a hint of loneliness.
Novel by Iona Grey
Just as I both liked and disliked this book, I gleaned insights about what I do and don't want for my own writing. With a two part story line, set in contemporary and WW II era England, and the converging lives of a 1940's pastor's wife and an abused bar singer on the run from her ex-boyfriend, this seems to be right up my alley. I love that kind of story, for the quickness of the pacing and the variety of settings and different types of characters allowed by switching time periods. I do strive to do this in my own writing and saw some clever ways of making the story arcs cross over each other. I also admired the descriptions of the various spaces in the story: beautiful, sacred, neglected, impoverished, elaborate...the rendering of the settings lent itself well to the story, and I want to work on that. What dissatisfied me, and makes me eager to avoid in my own writing, is the convenience of certain plot conventions and character traits. The characters changed too quickly to reflect real relationships and the way we learn from mistakes, and the coincidences that ironed out kinks in the plot were too easily plopped in the characters' paths. I'm all for a happy ending but it doesn't have to be a Hollywood happy ending, you know? Lesson learned
Language Arts
Kallos is a Seattle author and I really enjoyed her first novel, Broken for You. She writes very realistic, rounded characters who are chipped in places but resilient. This one is about an English teacher, divorced and lonely, with an autistic son, who seems sort of in a midlife crisis but is really more asking and answering why his life is what it is. It's a convoluted story line, mostly about one year of the main character's childhood and present time, but with other voices and even some technical writing mixed in. I think because of the journalistic tone of some of the writing, it was off-putting to me. I almost quit this one but I had to have some questions answered. Yes, I skimmed the ending when I was about halfway through, like I often do, but this time it wasn't because I needed reassurance about characters I love. I needed to know it was going someplace. And it was, and it was a good place, so I'm glad I finished it. Is it something I want to write? No. I like Kallos's thoughtfulness and want someday to write more serious, yet still entertaining, literature like her. But it's maybe a bit too staid for me. I found myself drawn to the scenes of real places, though, and want to emulate that sense of place, as well as her obvious writing from what she knows, which is Seattle and teaching and a hint of loneliness.
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