Library Book Sale Finds: The Sword of the Spirits by John Christopher

Hey, hey, sneaking in under the wire, two months in a row!

This book had a lot of telling right at the beginning, and it took me about halfway through before I realized I was reading the last book of a trilogy.

Title: The Sword of the Spirits
Author: John Christopher
Genre: Science Fantasy
Publication Year: 1972

Pros: Impressive wordsmithing
Cons: A lot of telling, unlikable main character

Wikipedia tells me that this is the last book of a young adult trilogy. I would not have considered it young adult before that, but apparently the main character is considerably younger in the first two books.

The beginning, as I said above, has a lot of telling–recounting what the main character had done at what must have been the end of the second book, explaining how the world works, etc.–but it was very pretty telling. I’m always a little annoyed when I read a book and the telling is pretty and interesting. I think I’m just annoyed that someone had broken the cardinal rule of writing and done it in a way I can’t even be grumpy about.

(Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King is like that too.)

This series takes place in a post-apocalyptic United Kingdom (mostly England) where things have reverted to a medieval level of technology and the people live in individual city states. (I’m not clear what exactly happened…something with some sort of radiation, I suppose, since there are classes of humans called dwarves and polymufs which have various physical differences from “true” men. Also some sort of overall cooling of the planet.)

Do you remember when we read the Finnbranch trilogy? This felt like that, and is of about the same era of fantasy. It’s not true fantasy, of course, because it’s Earth in the future, but most of its tropes and elements come from fantasy rather than science fiction.

Our main character is Luke Perry (which is a thoroughly modern name and for some reason very distracting to me), Prince of the city-state of Winchester. He’s apparently prophecized by the Seers (basically scientists pretending to be holy men since machines are considered to have been the reason everything fell apart in the past) to be the one that will unite all the city-states again.

And he’s a pompous idiot.

There, I said it.

Luke is very headstrong and doesn’t take advice well, and he doesn’t take well to people challenging his decisions. Everything that goes wrong–and things go horribly wrong–is his own fault. I guess that’s kind of the author’s trademark, writing flawed protagonists. But it does make it hard to root for him.

And I won’t spoil the end, but I felt like it was unfulfilling, that everything Luke had worked for throughout the book was worthless in the long run. Also, it was depressing, and not in a way that was satisfying. Almost like the story was bored of itself and wanted to be done.

Now, it’s possible that if I had read the whole trilogy it would have been better, but maybe not. I’ve read enough 70s trilogies followed “chosen ones” of whatever ilk, and I’m kind of bored of the whole thing, since they’re almost always depressing and make you wonder why you bothered.

Would I recommend this? No. But the book does have a 3.8 on Goodreads, which is decent, so your mileage may vary.

Read any less depressing fantasy trilogies from the ’70s? Have any book recommendations in general?

There is Not Enough Time in the World

Earlier in the year, we talked about how there was Too Much Free Stuff. How companies stuck all sorts of things online for us poor quarantined people, and how so many of them seemed like good opportunities, and how hard it was to realize that I was not going to be able to even make a dent in them and should probably stop trying.

I’m really bad at that.

(Right now I have a tab open with a 90-minute marketing course that has probably been open since, uh, June. I should probably just admit I’m never going to get to it.)

(Yeah, I’m going to close it. Freedom!)

(freeeedom)

About a month ago, I got an email from Holly Lisle (one of my favorite writing teachers) about a “How to Find Your Writing Mojo” class, offered for free in a series of five emails.

Writing mojo sounded good. I mean, I’m producing reliably and fairly consistently, but I am well aware that I am wasting a lot of time right now, playing stupid phone games or ditzing around on YouTube, etc. I could be so much more productive.

But yeah.

Also, five emails didn’t sound too bad.

But I still sat on the class for several weeks and only did it last week.

And it was pretty easy! Only took about 15 minutes each day.

I don’t know if I would consider it helping my writing mojo, though. Perhaps Ms. Lisle and I have different opinions of “mojo.”

You see, when I read “writing mojo,” I thought of, you know, improving focus and flow. Being able to sit down and have a more productive writing session.

But mojo in Ms. Lisle’s class refers more to being able to come up with story ideas that speak to you personally. And I suppose that, if you work on something that resonates better, perhaps you’ll find it easier to sit down and get writing.

Which is helpful! And I did get some story ideas that I like very much.

But I tell you what–I’ve so many story ideas, and I already know not all of them will ever get written. There is not enough time in the world.

Got writing mojo tips, squiders? Or ways to focus in general right now?

Not Making Progress?

You know what’s weird, squider? Tennis balls keep appearing in my backyard. My dog is overjoyed. But where are the tennis balls coming from? Why? (We’re up to four.) Best I’ve got is that some neighbor has lousy aim and also does not care enough about their tennis balls to come and ask for them back. They do not seem to be laced with poison or whatever the hell you see on the news.

In other news, I drew this picture yesterday/today:

Taken with my phone camera, hence blurry and also vaguely blue

I’m actually fairly pleased with it. Coloring looks decent, shading exists, all body parts look more or less proportional.

But then I had an attack of insecurity.

Kit, I said to myself, you are drawing people the same way you did back in high school. You have not improved at all in *mumblemumble* years. Your style is neither suitably realistic, if that’s what you’re going for, nor is it stylized in a way that is acceptable. You are a hack and you should give up right now.

This is a creative person issue and it is stupid, yet here we are.

I actually started this post with the thought that I would show you guys some of my high school art, and we could all bemoan how awful I was together.

(I happen to have some high school art handy, because I uploaded the comic strip I used to draw, The Misadventures of Fauble, to my deviantArt account, which I had forgotten existed and apparently haven’t touched in eleven years.)

But, you know, I looked through the stuff on the dA account (not a lot, not sure what I was doing with it) and…sure, I am still drawing with the same style, more or less. But, and maybe this is just me, it looks cleaner now. And you’ll notice none of the images in my dA account have any sort of attempt at color.

Sometimes, it may feel like we’re not getting anywhere, but all it might take is a look backwards to see that, hey, we are.

(And, to be fair, I haven’t drawn much in my adult life until fairly recently anyway, just a picture here or there, mostly story related. So it would be unrealistic to expect a great amount of improvement.)

Anyway, I wanted to say, hang in there! Practice may not make perfect, but it does make better, even if it’s just a little bit at a time.

Ignorance IS Bliss

Last night I finished reading my July writing book, called How to Write a Page Turner: Craft a Story Your Readers Can’t Put Down by Jordan Rosenfeld. It was one of those books that delivers a ton of information, way more than you could conceivably absorb in a single go (which is why, halfway through August, I was still working on July’s book).

Additionally, yesterday, in one of my writing groups, someone posted a video about why creative types tend to be their own worst critics, and one of the points the artist doing the video brought up is that the more you know about something, the more you can see what’s wrong in your own work.

Which is kind of what reading How to Write a Page Turner felt to me.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but as I’ve understood the craft of writing better, the harder it is to just write.

Fifteen years ago when I was completing my first novel drafts, I had troubles, sure, like not plotting where the story was going or not being sure how to logically get to the ending I wanted, or changing tone halfway through a draft, etc. But the actual writing was okay.

Now, sometimes, I get hung up on sentence length and whether I’m using a variety of sentence structures so the writing doesn’t feel stilted. Am I using enough imagery? Am I using too many filter words? Am I telling when I should be showing, or vice versa? Or, perhaps, I’m taking too long to get to the next plot marker, or not enough time, or…

It’s a miracle anything gets written, honestly.

I didn’t necessarily learn anything new from How to Write a Page Turner (though I did think it was a well-organized book with good information in it), but it did remind me of issues I know I have, or am at least going through with the first draft of the changeling story. Stuff like not completing the action in a single chapter (which kills forward momentum) and description (never a strong point of mine–August’s book is actually Description and Setting). Or keeping a tight enough point of view.

I felt kind of called out.

But, to go back to the video, the artist’s point was that being able to see what’s wrong in your own work is a good thing. It means you have attained enough mastery where you understand and can see how to fix things. Before you reach that point, you’re just kind of flailing in the dark.

And all the issues the book brought up that I see in the current draft–it’s all fixable. It’s all stuff I know how to fix. Heck, if I can turn poor ol’ Shards into a publishable draft, I suspect I can fix just about anything.

(Remind me, sometime, and we can talk about the process of getting Shards from what it was to what it is. It was quite an undertaking. To go back to the point about shifting tone wildly halfway through a book.)

I do wish I could…turn it all off while I’m actually writing, though. It would certainly make things easier.

Hey, squider, got any pointers for focusing on doing something without all the “are you doing this and this and this and this right?” thoughts intruding all the time?

(As an aside, Shards could probably benefit from a cover upgrade. Hm. Something to consider.)

Characters, Characters, and Not a Drop to Drink

We continue working through the dreaded middle of the changeling story. And it goes okay! Not amazingly, not like the words are pouring out of my fingers, but not where I’m staring at the screen wondering what I’m doing with my life and where I’ve gone wrong.

I spent some time yesterday drawing the main characters for the book, Ivy and Birch. (Everyone gets nature-related names, cuz Faeries.) Ivy’s on her third name and Birch is on his second, but I think this batch will stick. Anyway, I drew them because I feel like they’re kind of weirdly nebulous, personality wise.

Which is annoying and frustrating. Character is normally my strong point. The other characters in the book are fine! There’s Iris, Ivy’s twin, who is foul-mouthed and slightly selfish and vain and an absolute joy to write. Even minor characters are good. It’s just my two mains which feel…off.

I don’t know that drawing them has helped anything. (The drawing, like how the writing goes, is okay! Not bad–except for Birch’s arm, which I tried three times to fix and then gave up on–but not amazing.)

I did more character work up front than normal for this story too, which makes it even more frustrating. If you recall, I’m using a story-writing course I bought forever ago, How to Think Sideways by Holly Lisle, as I work on this novel. (Or, well, I’m working on this novel because I’m taking this course. Something.) So there was one class that was about character motivations and whatnot, so I can tell you all the tragic backstory that has led the characters to being the people they are today, as well as their values, but that’s not helping anything.

And maybe they’re not even bad! Maybe they’re fine and I’m just stuck in the doldrums of Act 2, and once everything is on fire everything will be fine.

I guess I add it to my list of things to fix in revision (if it turns out to be an actual problem and not just me second-guessing everything).

I also find myself wanting to get on to the revision, which I can’t do because I need the draft to be done first, and also is just kind of weird. I burned out on revision–that’s why I switched over to writing new work, cuz I spent like, five years straight revising things.

Maybe revision sounds comforting though. Writing itself is sometimes like stumbling through the woods at night without a flashlight, but revision has a path and a light and normally gets to someplace safe and warm at the end.

Eh, who knows? Not me! You’d think by now I’d have some semblence of an idea–this is my 10th first draft (only counting stories that were finished in the end)–but apparently each time you still have to stumble through the woods.

Is it fall yet? I would very much like it to be fall. How are you doing, squiders? Been up to anything fun? Any cool projects you’ve been working on?

Still Scatterbrained

So, I see that I forgot to blog the second time last week. Good job, me. Very adult, much responsibility, or something.

I finished my systems test class, which was very interesting, and somewhat encouraging, since a lot of the test I was doing before is essentially the same, though less software focused (though there was still a lot of software). I think I’ll look more into the idea, perhaps after Christmas.

Also, my SkillShare membership ran out, so I’m out of illustration classes there. I did manage to squeeze in a short drawing one the first week of the month, so hooray. I have some art books that my mother gave me, so I think I’ll work through those before I worry about more online courses.

I also started a new class, called Story and Narrative Development for Video Games. It’s part of a video game development specialty offered through CalArts on Coursera. The first class, Intro to Game Development, I took a few years ago. Eventually I’d like to get through the whole specialty. I don’t really foresee myself making video games, but I’ve always thought it could be fun to write one. Plus there are some definite parallels between video games and novels and, as we are all sick of me saying, my goal for the year is education.

Other than that, I’ve been working on my next SkillShare class, which will be about genre–what it is, how it’s determined, stuff along those lines. I originally thought it’d be a quick class, but it’s turned out to be fairly massive. I’m almost done making the slides, though, so hopefully next week I will be able to start recording the lessons.

And then the changeling story carries on. I’m at about 45K, and hope to be about 55K by the end of the month. I’m still a little behind where I wanted to be, but I don’t really have the means or opportunity to do anything about that at the moment.

And I’m caught up on my prompt exercises, and I’m mostly done with a short story for Turtleduck Press that will go up next month. So writing’s happening, hooray!

I’m sorry again for being inconsistent here at the blog. I’m going to try to get back to twice a week, Tues/Thurs (obviously will be Wed/Fri this week, whoops), in the near future. If you guys have any feedback about what you’d like to see–craft posts, project updates, art projects, etc.–please let me know!

See you–and I mean it this time–on Friday!

Library Book Sale Finds: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

Ha! Here’s July’s book done, only a few days late.

This one is from my most recent book sale, back in November or December where I got a whole bag of books for $6. Admittedly there was not much on sale, so I think it ended up being $1 per book, but they were all hardcovers and fairly recent books.

We’ve already done one book from this sale–no, two, the blah mystery and the newer Mary Downing Hahn–so, hey, maybe I’ll actually get through all the books within a year of buying them. That would be the first time ever.

I am a sucker for books with book-related things in the title. Library of this or that, Book of something, etc. I don’t read a lot of contemporary books but I have this year, probably because they’re low stakes and feel-good, and this year sucks.

Title: The Library of Lost and Found
Author: Phaedra Patrick
Genre: Contemporary/general literature
Publication Year: 2019

Pros: Feel good-y
Cons: Predictable, some really awful characters

Also the cover copy made me believe there would be a mystery element to the story, and if there was meant to be, well, I figured it out REALLY EARLY and then that whole thing was lost.

The Library of Lost and Found follows Martha Storm, community do-gooder and library volunteer. Martha is a hard viewpoint character at the beginning of the book, because she’s such a pushover, ready to do anything to help someone out, and everyone else in her small town has figured this out and exploited it.

The book is told mostly in Martha’s point of view, though there are occasional chapters from her mother’s point of view in the past. These chapters always include a story Martha wrote as a child, which are nice and a key point in the book.

One night, after Martha has pushed all her stuff to the library from her house only to find the event she was hosting has been cancelled, she discovers someone has left a package for her on the library steps. (Also, I am not entirely clear on whether or not Martha works at the library in some capacity or just volunteers, and apparently none of the other reviewers on Goodreads are either. I’m pretty sure she just volunteers, because she talks about her parents leaving her some money and she keeps applying for jobs at said library. Which really makes the whole thing worse, with the being taken advantage of.)

The package ends up being a book of her stories from childhood, with a dedication to her from her grandmother, who died three years before said dedication. Or so she’d thought.

There’s not a lot of heavy lifting here. Family secrets are predictable. But it was easy and quick to read, and I mostly enjoyed the experience. And it is fun to watch Martha’s transformation.

If you need something feel-good to read and don’t mind not seeing anything new, I’d recommend this one.

Hope your August has started well, squiders. See you Thursday!