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review 2018-10-23 18:46
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
The Mothers: A Novel - Brit Bennett

I’ve been doing research for my upcoming novel, the good kind that means I can read a load of books (guilt free!) that concern the topic I’m going to write about. My novels going to have a sub-plot concerning the recent referendum that just took place in the south of Ireland, namely about repealing the eight amendment. It’s a contentious issue at the best of times, so I’m not going to go on about it here, except to say this book was one of the top one’s that supposedly treated the issue realistically. And I can confirm that it definitely did treat it realistically and sensitively, at that.

 

The story is set within a contemporary black community in Southern California and concerns Nadia, a seventeen-year-old girl who’s just lost her mother to suicide. In her grief-stricken state she takes up with the local pastor’s son, Luke. The pregnancy that results and the subsequent cover-up has a ripple affect that’s felt throughout the years and effects many relationships. Nadia’s best friend, Aubrey, becomes an integral part of the story a bit later on and even her relationship with the former is affected by the decisions made in her youth.

 

I couldn’t believe this was a debut novel and had to keep reminding myself of that fact. It kept a steady footing throughout and wove together seemingly isolated incidents in a way that felt very authentic.

 

I did have a few issues with it, even though I thought it was well done, such as the tendency to show rather than tell. I find this indicative of how much I love and think about a book after I’ve set it down. It’s so much more fulfilling as a reader to draw your own conclusions from the evidence, rather than being led there. Secondly, while Aubrey (Nadia’s best friend) was rather sweet, she didn’t fare particularly well when having to rely on her own esteem, rather than when she was reflected through Nadia. Luke, who was very much key to the narrative, also struggled to assert himself adequately. Every character seemed to falter when operating solo of Nadia and since this was written in third person multiple, it was felt quite viscerally. I would love to have seen how this book read in first person. I think it may have been ever-so-slightly stronger.

 

The religious theme was woven throughout, but at no time did it become preachy. Most of the main characters were involved in the church, but there was never that intrusive feeling you sometimes get. Nadia didn’t even seem particularly religious, neither did Luke.

 

The novel was more about an abstract notion rather than a concrete one, the what if’s in life and if they can sometimes mean more than reality.

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review 2017-03-24 16:00
Feckless Writing: "5000 Words Per Hour - Write Faster, Write Smarter" by Chris Fox
5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter - Chris Fox

I spend “a lot” of staring-off-into-space time doing stargazing...and find it leads not only to better scenes in my reviews, but to literature work that really hangs together. I used to write 1-3,000 words a week in my reviews...but then I felt I spent my life editing. Now, I become very suspicious of myself once I go over 1,000 words at a sitting, but that's just me. I support my writing habit by doing these posts...a process that has made me more careful than most people with 1st drafts...I've become pretty clear about what I definitely “don't” want in my posts. And yes, that slows me down. It just doesn't slow me down as much as having to decide at some later date to junk 50 or 100 words here or there. But, starting out, I too encourage people to write & write & write. Well, “marinated scenes” are indeed an important key no matter what.

 

This post on the 5-WPH-book that you’re reading right now made me try writing while walking. I’m still not ready to invest in Dragon yet, so I just used Google Voice to dictate an email to myself on my phone, then copied and pasted into Scrivener when I got home. I walked and talked for 10 minutes, then went in the house and set the timer to edit for another 15. I didn’t stop when my timer went off, but finished the section I was working on. It’s still a rough draft for sure, but I got 1075 words out of about 40 minutes of book reviewing writing – way faster than anything I’ve done up to this point, and I definitely hit that sense of flow.

 

 

If you're into self-help books, read on.

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review 2017-03-17 20:44
#ITHINKICAN: "Antologia do Poesia Fã Clube Novembro 2016" by Several Authors
Antologia do Poesia Fã Clube Novembro 2016 - Manuel Augusto Antão

NB: Antologia do Poesia Fâ Clube Novembro 2016 = Fan Club Poetry Anthology November 2016

I doubt anyone else is going to review this poetry book (it’s in Portuguese, not counting my three contributions in English, and it’s poetry), so I thought I’d do it. The problem with reviewing a book with something of mine inside is that it's impossible to get any distance to it. So some of the time I'll rejoice, and some of the time I'll whimper, but I'm afraid that's unavoidable. Beware.

 

I do agree that reading is suffering as a pleasurable activity. It seems possible though that one of the reasons for this push away from a literary (and literate as some rather startling surveys have suggested) society is that people have a damn hard time finding their niche (Rilke for some of us...) when it comes to reading even though we know where we stand when it comes to religion, politics, music, and even debates on what is and isn’t art. It's almost as if there was some obvious and oppressive majority (our friends) to either instill their taste preferences in us or push us to rebellion through the "TURN THAT SHIT OFF!" gratification system. I doubt most of us (beyond the really hideously sheltered or those raised under horrifyingly religious parents) ever had our parents aware enough of what we were reading to get to the point of telling us to "put that fucking book down and get some fresh air, you pasty hobgoblin!"

 

If you're into Poetry, read on.

 

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review 2017-03-04 16:31
50K or bust! : "No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days" by Chris Baty
No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days - Chris Baty

 

“Anyway, whenever people express their reluctance to invest time in something that won’t have proven results, I ask them what they do for fun on weekends. Invariably, the time they spend running around on basketball courts, rearranging Scrabble tiles, or slaying video-game monsters is not done in an effort to make millions of dollars from corporate sponsorship. Or because they think it will make them famous. No. They do it because the challenge of the game simply feels good. They do it because they like to compete; […] because it feels really, really nice to just lose themselves in the visceral pleasure of an activity. Novel writing is just a recreational sport where you don’t have to get up out of your chair.”

 

In “No Plot No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days”by Chris Baty”

 

In the last few years I’ve read at least one book a week. Back in the day the number was two books a week.  And yes I haven’t read Twilight yet. Have you? THAT, my dear, is the drivel that you would expect from us non-professional WriMos. I’ve been working on a SF novel since, I don’t know, ages, and if it never gets published I will be fine with that because it's for MY enjoyment and satisfaction that I could do it... Every moron seems to think that we're all illiterate Neanderthals who maybe can read Dick and Jane and Dr. Seuss, but I've read Canterbury Tales in the Middle English, Beowulf in Olde English and Shakespeare in Elizabethan English...Like to see YOU try that!

 

If you're into the NANOWriMo, read on.

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review 2016-10-22 20:35
Schreib jeden Tag, oder auch nicht.
A Cheater's Guide to NaNoWriMo: Tips, Tricks and Hacks for Winning This November (Write Better Books Book 1) - Laura Roberts

Hinweis: Bei NaNoWriMo handelt es sich um das internationale Schreibprojekt "National Novel Writing Month", bei dem jeder Teilnehmer versucht, im Monat November ein Buch (bzw, einen ersten Entwurf für ein Buch) mit mindestens 50.000 Wörtern zu schreiben. Was 1999 als Scherz in einer kleinen Gruppe von Freuden begann, hat 2016 schon weit über 400.000 Teilnehmer. Ich persönlich werde dieses Jahr zum fünften Mal teilnehmen.

Wie ich auf dieses eBook gestoßen bin, weiß ich gar nicht mehr. Möglicherweise hat es mir jemand im NaNoWriMo-Forum empfohlen, als ich auf der Suche nach Schreibratgebern speziell für das besonders rasche "Plotten" (Entwerfen der Handlung) von Manuskripten war? Jedenfalls hat mich der Titel ein bisschen stutzig gemacht, denn ein "Cheater" ist ja jemand, der mogelt - und das ist bei NaNoWriMo eigentlich gar nicht möglich, denn da es nichts zu gewinnen gibt, betrügt man sich höchstens selbst.

Aber der Klappentext klang vielversprechend. Daraus übersetzt: "Der Cheater's Guide to NaNoWriMo wird deine Hand halten, mit all den Tipps, Tricks, Schwindeleien und Kniffen, die du brauchen wirst, um dein Buch fertigzustellen, es von deiner Festplatte runter zu kriegen und es zu veröffentlichen, so dass Leute es tatsächlich lesen können."

Oh ja, bitte! Man kann wirklich jede Hilfe gebrauchen, wenn man jeden Tag mindestens 1.667 Wörter schreiben muss/will - und dabei möglichst noch etwas produzieren, das mit etwas Überarbeitung der Veröffentlichung würdig ist. Denn das ist das Schwierigste an der Sache; viele Teilnehmer schaffen die 50.000 Wörter, aber nur wenige veröffentlichen das geschriebene Manuskript dann auch.

Leider liefert dieser Ratgeber wenig mehr als Allgemeinplätze, Dinge, die einem der gesunde Menschenverstand schon sagt ("Überleg dir vorher, was du schreiben willst!"), oder Ratschläge, die man auf der Webseite von NaNoWriMo kostenlos bekommt. Dabei bleibt die Autorin oft sehr vage oder widerspricht sich selbst: Schreib nicht jeden Tag, das ist kontraproduktiv - doch, du musst dich unbedingt daran gewöhnen, jeden Tag zu schreiben - außer, du hast keine Lust dazu.

Eigentlich hatte ich ja gedacht, das mit dem "Mogeln" sei als kleiner Scherz gedacht - oder mehr als Hyperbel für: "praktischer Tipp, an den man selbst nie gedacht hätte" -, aber die wenigen Tricks, die die Autorin mit dem Leser teilt, sind tatsächlich oft Anleitungen zum Selbstbetrug und nicht mehr. So empfiehlt sie zum Beispiel, man solle für das Projekt nicht nur Wörter zählen, die man tatsächlich für sein Manuskript geschrieben hat, sondern auch alle Emails, SMS, Einkaufszettel und überhaupt alles, was man mit gutem Willen als "geschrieben" zählen kann, ganz egal, ob es irgendwas damit zu tun hat oder nicht. Am besten soll man sogar Unterhaltungen, die man mit Freunden geführt hat, als Dialoge in die Geschichte übernehmen!

Das Büchlein liest sich durchaus unterhaltsam, denn die Autorin erzählt locker und witzig von ihren eigenen Erfahrungen mit NaNoWriMo und dem Schreiben allgemein. Aber auch da geht sie nie wirklich in die Tiefe oder erklärt, wie genau sie dieses oder jenes geschafft oder nicht geschafft hat.

Leider muss ich zusammenfassend sagen, dass es deutlich bessere Ratgeber gibt, die einem tatsächlich Werkzeuge fürs Schreiben in die Hand geben. Darunter sind auch mehr als genug , die sich locker und unterhaltsam lesen und den ungeübten Schreiber nicht überfordern.

Fazit: für Neulinge zu wenig praktische Grundlagen, für erfahrene Teilnehmer zu wenig brauchbare Tricks.

Source: mikkaliest.blogspot.de/2016/10/nanowrimo-cheaters-guide-von-laura.html
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