Getting Back On the Road

For almost two years now, I’ve been ignoring a young adult book I’d started writing. The printed out pages of critiqued chapters lay on the corner of my desk, haunting me, reminding me that there’s story which is far from finished.

I’m not really sure why I stopped writing it. I could blame the circumstances in my personal life (ie I had a baby) but that would be lying. It probably had more to do with the fact that I knew I was coming to a point where I didn’t know how to continue. I had the plot of three more chapters planned out in my head. As for the rest, I only know how I want the novel to end. I haven’t got a clue how to get my characters there.

Vanessa’s Noteworthy Reads of 2012

Looking at the list of books that I read this year, I noticed there weren’t any books that spring out as definite favourite reads. But there are two books I want to mention simply because they surprised me and had something unique.

1. De Eeuw Van Mijn Vader by Geert Mak

As the title gives away, this is a Dutch book. Although some of Geert Mak’s other books have been translated to English, this one has – unforgivably – not been translated. A translation would be: “My Father’s Century”. Geert Mak is a historical non-fiction writer. I usually don’t read books from this genre but several people recommended this book to me and I’m glad I took their advice and read it.

Goodreads and to the Future

In the beginning of this year, my fellow Cecile’s Writers recommended Goodreads to me and I recall looking at them thinking Good-what? After a thorough explanation I could completely understand why it would be right up my alley. So I signed up, familiarized myself with the platform and before I knew it, I was checking every morning to see the latest updates of friends that would often inspire me to read more or to discover new literature. More importantly, I finally had a place to track my own reading and rate all the books I’ve read… fantastic! If you’re a bookworm or neurotic organizer like I am, Goodreads is basically heaven.

Fellow Bookworms

All that aside, I have managed to make many friends on Goodreads – both readers and writers – who have enriched my literary life. Every time I have a new friend I race to check their books and what we’ve read in common so I can measure up where I stand in comparison and how similar our reading tastes are. This in turn helps me to decide whether their recommendations or reviews will be of particular interest to me. Fortunately, I have many such friends (you know who you are) and all I can say at this point is that I’ve never had such a long reading list in my life… to think I use to grumble about not being able to read enough when the list was just a quarter of the length!

Twitter Fiction Festival

How much storytelling can you do in 140 characters? I don’t think I can create fictional tweets but I’d love to see the results at the festival:

http://blog.twitter.com/2012/10/announcing-twitter-fiction-festival.html

Vanessa

Dear Journal… It’s Not You, It’s Me

We began so cordially only to quickly be inseparable. You were an extension of my thoughts, a constant reminder of ideas that came to me in different places at different times. You were the hard evidence that chronicled my consistent observations of the world around me, the interesting passages I’d quote from essays or interviews, the pages of fiction books I’d jot down to reference later, the advise a writing instructor would give… all in all, you helped me in making links between this and that, and now I see my creativity shine in you.

Lightsabers Versus Wands

Walk into the average bookstore and you’ll see a section titled Science Fiction slash Fantasy. A term that combines both these genres is speculative fiction, which is slightly broader. David Bowlin of ShadowKeep Magazing defined it as follows:

Speculative fiction is a world that writers create, where anything can happen. It is a place beyond reality, a place that could have been, or might have been, if only the rules of the universe were altered just a bit. Speculative fiction goes beyond the horror of everyday life and takes the reader (and writer) into a world of magic, fantasy, science. It is a world where you leave part of yourself behind when you return to the universe as we know it, the so-called real world. Speculative fiction defines the best in humanity: imagination, and the sharing of it with others.

Why Fiction?

In C.S. Lewis’ book An Experiment in Criticism, I found a thread of thought that was both engaging and insightful where he proposed a thought experiment involving literary criticism.

Lewis suggests that books should be judged by how they are read rather than how they are written, and that readers should approach any book they read for the first time without prejudgment. Any book that motivates a reader to want to reread it is then a work of art regardless of label or genre. The most succinct passages I found were those of his epilogue, which pretty much sum up the book:

Are Deadlines a Catalyst or Catastrophe?

I began reading Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa this morning and the first thing that struck me was the foreword:

Unlike many novels, none of the characters or incidents in this book is imaginary. Any one not finding sufficient love interest is at liberty, while reading it, to insert whatever love interest he or she may have at the time. The writer has attempted to write an absolutely true book to see whether the shape of a country and the pattern of a month’s action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of the imagination.

This alone was quite interesting and gave the impression of an antithesis to a typical introduction of a fiction book where the author denies any similarities to real persons