Top Ten Favorite Places To Write

So, being a writer, that means I write a lot. Obviously. That also means I've done some writing in some interesting places. (or, rather, not-interesting places. I'm sometimes not an interesting person.)

Here's a foray into the Top Ten Places I Like To Write:

1. At my desk.

because nothing says "productive" like spending an hour trying to clear off a messy space, only to write in it for 30 minutes. Maybe there's a reason my desk is messy. I don't know. But seriously, though, desks are made for productivity, so it's good to use them as such.

2. At A Coffee Shop.

I know this is the Biggest Writer Trope Ever, but that's because, in coffee shops, there's Wi-Fi, caffeine, and plenty of people to make up stories about. Just don't forget your headphones, in case you need/ want to ward off inquisitive souls or provide your own soundtrack. (it can be difficult to write a gruesome death scene to the sounds of coffee shop music.)

3. On A Train.

Given that train rides tend to be an hour or more, it's a good time to do a lot of things - think, write, not talk to the person next to you if it's crowded. If you're on a long ride at a weird time (my preferred train is at around 7:30 AM), that means you can spread out all your notes.

4. On A Plane

I don't do this one often, because I haven't found myself on a plane in over a year, but as long as you have a small notebook or laptop and seat partner that doesn't get easily flustered, this is a good way to while away the time and distract yourself from the cramped seats.

5. Long Car Rides

I don't often get motion sickness, so this is feasible for me. If you DO get motion sickness, then sleep for the duration of the ride and then write about your dreams when you wake up.

6. In The Library

Since I'm in college, the local library on campus is research-oriented. When I'm in the Stacks (aka the quiet floor) and I get a desk by the window, that allows an afternoon of writing AND the chance to do research if I need to.

7. On My Bed.

It's comfortable. That is all.

8. On The Couch.

See #7.

9. While waiting for trains/ planes/ public transportation.

You have time to sit. Just make sure that you have a quick place to stash your writing materials when your mode of transportation arrives.

10. On The Metro/ Subway/ Public Transportation.

This is another time for the Headphone Defense. I usually hand-write my first drafts, so it's easy to do this one, but those who work exclusively on laptops might not be so lucky. All of us are out of luck if traveling during rush hour and can't find a seat. In that case, I'm sorry.

On Knitting

So sometimes I get asked weird questions about my knitting, so I figured I'd answer some of them here, so I can have good reference answers.

How do you knit so fast?

practice. When you've been knitting for 2/3 of your life, you'd do it, too.

what's the biggest thing you've ever made?

My prom dress or an afghan for my brother's wedding present.

Why do you knit so much?

why do you ask weird questions?

What are you making?

that's a good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out. (usually I'm knitting as a fidget. I have ADD, and sometimes it's hard for me to sit and just listen, unless it's a really intense conversation. Either I take notes or I knit. It's nothing against the conversation. Have you ever been in a situation where you just can't stand the person talking, and you find your mind wandering easily? That's me with most things, even when I would LOVE to hear more about the subject.)

What constitutes "Acting?"

Last night, I gave my first tour with a ghost tour company. Aside from memorizing my stories, this job involved dressing up in two layers of cotton and a bonnet and carrying around a lantern and a fan. Personally, I don't consider this "acting."
For me, acting involves a large shift in persona - when an actor is in character, you are talking to that character, not that actor. The actor may infuse a bit of their own personality into it, but the character and the actor are, ideally, two identities in the same brain. (This sounds very trippy because it is very trippy. Cool, but trippy.)
Ghost tours are a slightly different matter. On a tour, I'm projecting a slightly different persona than the one I'm projecting at this moment. There are more differences than there are similarities, however:  Right now, I'm sitting on my couch in sweatpants; I haven't showered or put my contact lenses in. This is the first productive thing I've done today, except for getting coffee. It's close, easy, and comfortable.
Ghost tours do involve a bit of a persona shift. It's impossible to feel like you're wearing sweatpants when you're in a petticoat and bonnet. It's hard to even feel fully of this century, even though I keep my cell phone on my person in case someone gets hurt. The only similarity in feeling is how much one would sweat if wearing either outfit (sweatpants or costume) in summer heat with humidity.
The difference between ghost tours and acting is, I guess, situational. When leading ghost tours, I am Wild Card In A Petticoat With A Lantern And Fan. When I'm blogging, I'm Wild Card In Sweatpants With Laptop. They're both Wild Card.
An Actor might be Actor In Period Dress or Actor In Sweatpants With Laptop, BUT they could also be Actor As Character In Period Dress or Actor As Character In Sweatpants With Laptop.

I've tried, but I can't hold a candle to what an actor can do with character development.

Not much to say today

Don't have too much to say today, except the following:

there will occasionally be a guest blogger in town. TheReviewingFangirl, who posts over at booksmoviesandmore.net (link here), will occasionally be guest blogging for me, and I for her. It's like a trade-off between friends. HOORAY FOR FRIENDS!

On Myers-Briggs in Writing

So, according to a random online quiz I took in 10 minutes, my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ - Introvert, INtuitive, Feeling, Judging. If this random website is to be believed, I like my own circle of friends (fairly true), like big-picture concepts more than hard details (sometimes true), emphasize emotions rather than facts when making decisions (50-50), and I like control by planning everything WEEKS IN ADVANCE (This is obviously inaccurate, because I'm writing on a Myers-Briggs quiz I took 15 minutes ago and NOT the topic I had written in my planner three weeks ago.)

Obviously, not everyone is 100% Myers-Briggs 100% of the time. One time I saw a quiz that showed your type by percentage - 52% introvert, for example, based on your responses. If you just call yourself your Myers-Briggs all the time, it's too easy to call in extremes. I'm not ALL SOCIAL JUSTICE ALL THE TIME. I'm in a service fraternity and sometimes I volunteer over the summer. Is that more than most people? Maybe, but maybe not - I don't know your life. If you do, good for you. If you don't, get on that.

When writing characters, I think it's important to have a guideline type: a character who tends toward a certain combination, but maybe is only truly an extrovert by 2% response rate. Knowing this could allow you, the writer, to know how the characters could react to things - and where it's easy for them to swing the opposite way. If one character is 88% an introvert, this character is not going to make the first move on someone attractive without a friend there; if they're only 52%, then other factors could play into whether they speak to someone or not.
And where does the plot go from there?

REVIEW: "the Book of Life" by Deborah Harkness

"Wild Card," you say, "Why didn't you post at all last week? Why have we been waiting for content since your last book review?"
THIS BOOK IS WHY. Like the last two books in the trilogy, I've been surreptitiously (and not) been reading this book since I did my last review. The only things that have kept me from this book are work, church, and sleep (and the last one may have been compromised by it). Though it doesn't go quite as quickly as the other two in the trilogy, I was still reading 125 pages a day at least (that's a record for me.)

So, real thoughts on The Book of Life?
First, SPOILER WARNING. (this is the third book in a trilogy. If you want to read it unspoiled, proceed with caution and maybe don't proceed at all).

Plot summary: Basically, this is the part where the pieces of Ashmole 782 finally get put back together and the Congregation and the Covenant are faced.
There are questions posed for Act 3: Are any of Matthew's children a threat? (Yes. Matthew's vampire-son, Benjamin, is, lightly speaking, a psychotic asshole of the rape-and-murder variety.) What will the Congregation do about Diana and Matthew's relationship? Are Peter Knox and Gerbert the Vampire going to continue being assholes until the end? (Yes, but someone has to).
There are prior questions answered as well: what is blood rage? What determines which vampire manifests the traits and which vampire is a carrier? How are weavers made, and why is Diana a weaver and not a normal witch? (an interesting answer awaits these two). What does the Book of Life actually say?

There are a lot of answers to a lot of questions. The Book of Life is a fast-paced conclusion to the series, and I loved almost every page, especially because Diana does a lot of saving people by the end of it.

I say "almost" because there are a few issues. SPOILER WARNING REMINDER.



Firstly, Gallowglass. I love this vampire to death, and I wish his plot arc could have ended better. It appears that he fell in love with Diana in 1590, but it wasn't clear whether he was in love or he had actually hoped to mate with her later on. Part of me was wondering whether this would be a situation similar to Twilight, where an ancillary love interest (Jacob) spends a lot of time with the heroine while she's pregnant; it turns out that the heroine's daughter is Jacob's One True Life Partner. Though the process of vampires choosing thier One True Life Partner is not fully explored in the All Souls Trilogy (when the main couple are fully consenting adults, mating only needs to be explained as Somewhat More Than Marriage), I'm a little bit curious as to why Gallowglass's feelings are brought up at all. Is it possible for a vampire to mate when the other being is still a zygote? If so, has Gallowglass actually developed feelings for one of Diana and Matthew's twin children when they're still fetuses? Are his feelings just a reason for Gallowglass to agree to be Diana's bodyguard when Matthew is out?
Given that Gallowglass does have feelings for Diana, it makes sense that he isn't present in the epilogue. I do wish that he could have been there, though.

Secondly, the climax. I can handle a moderate amount of bodily harm in fiction, but there were moments when I felt gross. That, like nothing else, showed how much of a psychotic asshole Benjamin could be. The climax was good for a few reasons: two of Diana's struggles were overcome (lack of magic and hesitating before killing), the fact that she saves Matthew and not the other way around, that Benjamin got a truly fitting death, and that Diana was able to face and run the Congregation.

Thirdly, the ending. Some of it seemed too perfectly wrapped-together. The revocation of the Covenant, which really needed to be revoked, was very good and fitting, but there didn't seem to be enough of a price. Yes, Diana was exhausted and absorbed the Book of Life and all that, but what are the ill effects of that? All it really seems is that now Matthew can truly say to their children, "Pay attention to your mother, because she really does know everything." Though the scientific exploration of creatures is interesting, it just feels too well-wrapped.


The duration of the story into the third act, though, is great. The biggest drawback I can think of is that these books are really heavy and I can't always take them everywhere.
Definitely check them out if you have the chance.

BOOK REVIEW: "Shadow of Night," by Deborah Harkness

BE WARNED: SPOILERS TO COME. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Shadow of Night, the second book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, is a fairly good follow-up to the first book. The book functions well as the second act in a three-act narrative, which is fairly important for a trilogy.

A brief summary:

Diana and Matthew go back to 1590 England (and Prague, and France) to learn more about the mysterious Ashmole book and to teach Diana more about her magic. While there, Matthew's backstory unfolds and they get clues to the future of their relationship.

As a standalone narrative, Shadow of Night is a pretty good book. As a sequel to Discovery of Witches, it's even better. Matthew and Diana develop more character, independently and together, and they handle threats to their relationship in ways that reflect their character development. This includes one part where Matthew will not sit down and have a much-needed Big Boy Relationship Talk, so Diana finds a way to make him have the much-needed talk without resorting to anything too dangerous.

Now I'm going to do something that I've never done in a book review: Making a List of Favorites/ Least Favorites.

spoilers ahead

new character

Favorite: Gallowglass or Jack Blackfriars. Though Henry Percy, Walter Raleigh, Rudolf II, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and a number of other historical figures make appearances, these two fictional ones are my favorites. Gallowglass is Matthew's nephew (in vampire lineage), and, once he gets used to the idea that Matthew is married to a witch, is a very fun character. Though I always imagined him at around the same age as Diana, he always calls her "auntie," which is funny in contrast to his description (tall, Scottish, and burly). If this were a movie, I would probably ask Chris Hemsworth to style his hair like he does when playing Thor and learn a Scottish accent.

STOP LOOKING SO SERIOUS, GALLOWGLASS.

Source: screenrant.com

Jack is a street rat. I wasn't sure about his function at times, but he allowed Matthew to show his paternal side occasionally. For the record, "Matthew" and "Paternal Side" are things that I didn't think would go together, but it happened and it was adorable.

Least Favorite: Diana's father. Though Diana and her father meeting by chance in 1590 was an interesting chapter, it felt thrown in at the end. He did make a few important points to help his daughter's marriage and magic, they all seemed like things that could have been said by someone else. William Shakespeare could have sent them on their first real date, and the coven that Diana learns from could have pushed her a little bit farther without the help of her father. It was interesting to read Diana's encounters with the father she lost at age 7, but it felt unnecessary somehow.

scene in the book

Favorite: okay, I've narrowed it down to two.

First, there was when Philippe, Matthew's vampire father, finally accepted Diana into the family. The entire chapter was intense for a number of reasons, but when he finally accepts her into the family, every interaction he has with her makes much more sense. There is one final test, which results in perhaps my favorite line in the book: "I just killed a man! Now is not the time to discuss our marriage." (Philippe throws Matthew and Diana a Real and Proper Wedding after that, which is a pretty good scene in itself.)

Second is when Diana and Matthew somehow get on the topic of vampire romance novels. It's only a brief exchange and I'm not sure I should include it, but whatever. It's very funny because, in the context of a vampire romance thread, it calls out basically every vampire romance novel ever. It concludes with my second-favorite line in the novel: "Help! I think I married a vampire!"

Least Favorite: It's hard to say. As a whole, the novel stands out as a fairly cohesive work. The final scene is good for showing how each artifact from Matthew's modern-day life winds back up at his home 420 years later, but I would rather the work end on more of a cliffhanger to race through to the third book.

Some of the flash-forward scenes are somewhat weak as well, but help to introduce at least a few new people. It does make more sense to show these connections rather than have someone say "hi, this is _________ we met when we were searching for you" or something.

overall impressions

this is one rollicking ride. If you like vampire romances where vampire romance is only half the point, definitely pick up this series.

BOOK REVIEW: "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness

Yesterday, I finished reading A Discovery of Witches, the first book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness.

To call this the first book in a vampire romance trilogy is not entirely accurate. Yes, a witch and a vampire fall in love. Yes, these two are the main couple in the series. Yes, there are consequences to their relationship that need to be sorted out. Unlike Twilight, however, that's not the major point of the series.

Diana Bishop is a witch by blood and a history professor by trade. She takes a sabbatical in Oxford to do some research. Her era of focus is the transition from alchemy to science. One day, she brings a book from the stacks that has been missing for centuries, known as Ashmole 782. This book is important to a whole lot of creatures for a whole lot of reasons. Diana doesn't know that and, once she's done trying to read the magically encrypted text, she sends it back to the stacks.
As she's working on her research the next week, Diana meets Matthew Clairmont. Matthew's a vampire geneticist who focuses on evolution. Matthew wants to see Ashmole 782 because it may show why vampires, daemons, and witches live and work among humans at all.

The first half of the book focuses more on setting up the world, Matthew's theories, Diana's power (and the fact that she doesn't use it), and the relationships that should and should not happen among vampires, witches, and daemons.
The second half has a lot to do with the development of Diana's relationship with Matthew, with a bit more exposition to each backstory. We meet Matthew's vampire mother, Ysabeau (who is probably my favorite character), Marthe the vampire maid, Sarah and Emily (Diana's aunts, who raised her after Diana's parents died), and Matthew's co-workers - his son Marcus and friend Miriam.

The book ends with SPOILERS, but I'm excited to read the next book, Shadow of Night. It seems to involve time travel, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe having the hots for Matthew.

This book is fairly good for a vampire romance category, but it doesn't fit neatly into that. I hope that the rest of the trilogy delves more into the significance of the Ashmole book, and why EVERYONE seems to want it.
A Discovery of Witches also includes really important details about psychological reactions to events, but without blatantly saying "THIS PERSON HAS A DISORDER." (except in the beginning, but that turns out to be a bit false). One of the highest-tension moments is a big spoiler, but it involves Diana getting a lot of nasty scars on her back. After that, she gets really uncomfortable whenever anyone is standing behind her and she doesn't know what they're doing. This is everything from when Matthew and Sarah treat her wounds to someone just entering the room when she's facing away from the door. There is a lot of attention to detail like that - sometimes too much. The climax seems to be a series of information dumps and plot twists that I hope will be resolved in the next book.

In all, though, A Discovery of Witches is a really fun read for anyone who wants an interesting introduction to a fantasy/ romance series. 

Why Read Fantasy Novels?

If you didn't already know, my favorite genre of fiction is the fantasy novel (and sometimes sci-fi as well). Though I do like to read anything with an engaging set of characters, fantasy novels have always been my favorite.

Why?

Part of the magic of fantasy is that there is a level of escapism - that there's a distinct layer between the reader and the page, since the reader most likely does not live in a world with dragons, mages, and several different species of bipeds. On the most vague of surface levels, I read fantasy to get away from my normal life.

On another level, reading fantasy or science fiction allows for exploration of real-world themes. Ursula K. LeGuin is amazing at doing this. She writes sci-fi, but she structures many of her societies in a very recognizable way, except for one major point. In The Left Hand of Darkness, humans live on a cold planet called Winter, and everyone is a hermaphrodite until it comes time to reproduce. This allows for some exploration of themes of gender and sexuality, but not deliberately. If The Left Hand of Darkness was set on Earth, the themes would be too blatant. Put it in the context of genderless society, and LeGuin makes the reader look at both Winter and Earth in a different light.

Of course, world-building is another factor in why fantasy is so appealing. How each author conceives of their built societies and their interactions with each other is fascinating for me to read. The author's context has an influence on world-building as well. Bram Stoker had a different conception of vampires when he wrote Dracula than Stephenie Meyer did when writing Twilight. Deborah Harkness has a different way of exploring the existence of non-human creatures in The All Souls Trilogy than Stephenie Meyer did when writing the Twilight Saga.

Reading fantasy, for me, is more about thinking about new and old things differently. Tropes of fantasy have been around for a long time, and re-examining things in a new light is fascinating.

Welcome to Blog Most Days Of The Week In July!

Greetings!
After a two-month hiatus, I'm back, and ready to actually blog! I'll be trying to post every weekday; the overall goal is to blog five days a week this month (except for this week, because there are only four days in July this week. But no matter.)

So the theme of this month is WRITE WHAT COMES TO MIND. And by "write what comes to mind," I mean "post about the thing I wrote in my planner yesterday when I was planning out the rest of my summer."

So today's topic is:

HOW TO SURVIVE A BORING SUMMER

Boring summers are kind of a drag.

Well, not 'kind of a drag.' They are, by definition, a drag. If you don't get a job or internship, AND you can't find anywhere to volunteer, and you're too old for camp, and you can't/ won't go on vacation, AND all your friends are out of down doing one of the above, then summer is basically 12 weeks of Netflix and pretending you can accomplish more than watching all 10 seasons of "Friends" in less than a week.

I know from experience.

So what should you do if you want REAL LIFE "friends" but don't have the means for summer adventures that happen in books and movies?

TRY THE FOLLOWING!

Find a place to go exercise. And then go exercise.

It counts extra if you only have to get yourself there through sheer force of will, and not driving or public transportation. If you're broke, you need to take advantage of these things.

Find free things, and then do them.

If it's free outdoor concerts, free books, free anything. Just go and find free things to do, and go do them. Bring a friend/ family member and food from home and then do cool things.

Try your hand at crafting.

If you get really good at your craft, you'll be able to watch "Friends" AND craft AT THE SAME TIME. This is how I'm getting through making my brother's wedding present. (Yes, the wedding that happened a month ago).

Read at least one book.

I don't know about you, but if I watch too much TV without SOME kind of literary interruption, I go insane. Try NOT going insane by reading more!

Get out of the house at least once a day.

This could be exercise. This could be going to hang out at someone's house. This could be going to a coffee shop. You could even (gasp) go to the library, where there are (gasp!) free things, and you can (GASP) read! AND THERE'S AIR CONDITIONING!

Start a blog and review things.

Review free things. Review not-free things. Review the free blog service that you're using. After a while, you can start putting ads on, and earn $5 by the end of the summer.