Twin-Bred

I’m buried in books today. Surrounding me are piles of The Foreign Language of Friends as I ready them for book contests. Entry forms are accompanied by stacks of one, two, or three copies, depending on the requirements of the contest. It’s a busy time of year, with plenty of deadlines early on. I also got the crazy notion a few days ago to enter Blood & Loam into Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest. That means getting all the polishing done in the next few weeks, all while I have to leave my home periodically to let possible buyers parade through. I tell myself I must be crazy, but I have made it a rule to follow my intuition at all times, so I’m up for the challenge!

On my iPad, via Kindle, I’m reading Twin-Bred by Karen Wyle, a wonderful sci-fi book. In Wyle’s fictional world, humans are cohabiting a planet with a species called Tofa, and prejudice and miscommunication abound. In a special project, human and Tofa babies are gestated in host mothers as twins, in the hopes that the special twin bond will help the two species learn how to bridge their differences. It’s a good read, and I especially love the scenes of the little kids as they start to grow up and play, acting like the little kids they are, and not the world saviors they’re expected to become.

Karen is part of my online writing group, the Blooming Late gals of She Writes. If you’re a woman over 40, come on over and visit if you get a chance. There’s a lot of talent in this group!

In addition, Julia Cameron’s new book, The Prosperous Heart, came out last week. Like her masterwork The Artist’s Way, the new book offers simple exercises to unblock us, this time from blocks to prosperity. Though the use of money is examined, this is more a book about feeling that sense of having “enough” in our lives.

I bought it mainly because I want Julia to keep doing what she’s doing, but I didn’t think there would be much for me. I was wrong. These gentle but powerful exercises are already starting to unlock parts of my brain, giving me new and surprising ideas for marketing my work as well as the work of other writers who deserve to have readers find them. Though Cameron’s process is spiritual, it is also practical, which appeals to my active left brain. The book does NOT promote positive thinking, but rather positive action. As I go along, I’ll keep you posted on my progress with this 12-week program.

Speaking of positive thinking, Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the laudable Nickel and Dimed, has written some not-so-positive things about the positive thinking movement that now pervades our workplaces, churches, and financial institutions in her book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking is Undermining America. In coming days, I’ll write more about this book, which I’m still “chewing” on. I don’t agree with all of it, but she makes some excellent points that are worth examining.

Finally, as I promised last week, I’ll write more about Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. Last week, when I wrote about my weight loss intentions for the year, some readers resonated with my fear of success. “Why do we do that?” a reader asked. Well, maybe we can figure that out. Pressfield’s book provides a great foundation for examining this block, which seems particularly difficult for women. Whether we’re losing weight, writing books, or have other goals, Pressfield’s advice can help us move beyond self-sabotage.

At any rate, these and other books that I’m reading should make for some lively discussion. What are you reading?

With National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starting November 1, many of my waking thoughts have concerned what to write about. I had chosen an idea and carefully crafted a chapter-by-chapter outline. I don’t spend a lot of time writing out the plot or character sheets like many NaNo’ers, because I am what’s known as a “pantser.” I generally have no idea what I’m going to write until I write it, and part of the fun for me is to let my characters surprise me. I do an outline for NaNo only to keep the nerves at bay — I know that if I panic, I can look at the outline and say, “oh, yeah, that’s where I was going.” And believe me, when you’re writing a novel in a month, it’s good to keep the nerves at bay.

This morning, just six days from the start, I woke with a new idea. It is so delicious I can hardly stand it, and my biggest problem will be NOT starting it until November 1.

I’ve had the habit of changing my mind like this since I returned to college, earning a belated degree in 2004 at age 45. I would write a paper, sometimes complete with all my footnotes neatly arranged. Then I would read the paper again, and some nugget would pop out at me that would cause me to rewrite the darn thing from a different, though more inspired, angle. So I’m used to changing my mind at the last minute. I wait until I get the juicy idea that is so compelling that I won’t mind shutting out the rest of the world while I write.

In the meantime, I also make time each day to read. This past week I read Frances Mayes’ Every Day in Tuscany: Secrets of an Italian Life. My editor has asked me to add a lot more setting and other visuals to Blood and Loam, and Mayes is a master of painting a picture of her surroundings. Travel narratives can be great teachers for description and setting, so it was fun to break away from novels to enjoy yet another of Mayes’ slice of life episodes in Italy.

I have also loaded up my iPad with books yet to read. I thought I would share what’s waiting for me. I can tell you what’s NOT waiting for me: the biography of Steve Jobs. I’d love to read it, don’t get me wrong. But $16.99 for the Kindle version? I’ll wait until the fuss dies down and buy it on sale, thank you.

Anyway, here’s what I’m reading or getting ready to read. What’s on your shelf?

Paperbacks:

The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley: The Story of Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley by Joan W. Goodwin. I am fascinated by the culture of Massachusetts post-Revolution through the Transcendental era (go ahead, call me geeky, it’s okay).

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Barry. Blood and Loam is set in the Midwest in 1970, and this is research for the book.

Four Dead in Ohio by William Gordon. More research for Blood and Loam. My main character was a student at Kent State when the shootings occurred.

E-Books:

Twin-Bred by Karen Wyle

The Sacrificial Lamb by Jolee Morriss and J. L. Murphey

Escape from Second Eden by JoAnn Murphey

The Language of Trees: A Novel by Ruby Ilie

There are more, but this is a start!

Have a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow with the week’s feature post.

I’m Buried in Books — What a Way to Go!

We’re Talking Books, So It Must Be Tuesday