Galls & Walnuts

books, writing, and a strange life

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Category: books

  • Library Haul: Writing Books

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    I had a bad habit of not reading enough books about writing. There are so many online references that give good advice, but with the homogenization of the internet, it’s interesting to find more colorful resources from before algorithms and learning language models were mainstream.

    I used to scoff a bit at books about writing because the ones that I was used to reminded me of college writing courses where the acceptable style was essentially anything that could be compared to the Great American Novel or Franz Kafka.

    I spent years thinking I had to abandon my genre preferences to fit in with the cool kids writing clubs. Although I am still developing a style and working on my craft, an incredible art video (forgot the name again) taught me some important lessons, and I became inspired to read some writing books for personal growth even if I don’t necessarily follow all of the practice exercises within.

    At my library, I found two books in particular with some pretty solid advice:

    The Jane Austen Writer’s Club by Rebecca Smith and The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clark.

    The Jane Austen Writers’ Club

    Rebecca Smith is a distant niece of Jane Austen, and writing does indeed run in the family. As an Austen fan, this was a wonderful book to read in that it provided several writing lessons about plot and characterization that both Smith and Austen deconstruct.

    One of my favorite takeaways from the book is the narrative technique called free indirect speech where the third-person narrator mixes their voice with the character’s perspective, thoughts, and rhythm. The characters thoughts are placed into the prose naturally, keeping the emotions, viewpoints, and even some slang typical of the character.

    The Art of X-Ray Reading

    Roy Peter Clark’s book discusses literary writing strategies that help generate meaning beyond the words of the page. In other words, he takes the works of literary masters and uses them as prime examples for writing mood, creating meaning through imagery and common objects, and organization of prose.

    This book helped to break down the organization of prose by helping me find common patterns in my own writing. I tend to overuse passive voice, too many synonyms, and similar sentence starters. This book made me more aware of these shortcomings so that I can get rid of them early in the drafting phase.

    Takeaways

    Although I’m not trying to write perfect drafts the first stime (this is impossible), these books have been valuable in helping me locate, assess, and fix common problems with my own prose. I highly suggest them.

  • Strand Bookstore Haul

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    Recently, Hubby and I went to New York City to visit friends, family, and old school stomping grounds.

    One of them is the Strand Bookstore, a historic bookstore known for its “18 Miles Of Books” in Book Row—a six-block ribbon of used and antiquarian book shops from 1890 to the present. Strand will be a hundred years old next year, and sadly the last surviving Book Row artifact. No wonder the neighborhood and book lovers pitched in to save it when it nearly closed during COVID-19.

    I honestly don’t need to buy anymore books (the current reading pile is large), but since I had a limited amount of time to spend at the store, I figured a controlled “haul” would be acceptable as souvenirs.

    I mainly wanted a tote—which is now my cat’s favorite unofficial bed, but after flying through the humid shelves, I decided to take a chance on three books.

    I did what I call a “Book Run,” where I had essentially fifteen minutes to find something interesting, then hurry back to Brooklyn.

    The Witch by Marie Ndiaye

    A witch from a small French town is bound into a horrendous marriage. As she passes her knowledge down to her twin daughters, the girls must choose to either stay under the thumb of their abusive father or leave their home and mother behind.

    I love a good story about witches. This one seems interesting because it has layers of realism woven within the supernatural. Plus, I haven’t read too many stories set in the French countryside. It will be a nice change in pace.

    Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

    A disgraced knight named Thomas encounters a young survivor of the Black Death who warns him of the impending destruction of man as Lucifer raises an army of fallen angels.

    I enjoy books (fictional and real) about cults and plagues (I have a bit of that going on in my current novel). This one caught my eye first because of its eye-catching cover, then because of the line an epic tale of medieval horror. I love period pieces with elements of fantasy and horror. I already have a long reading list, but I am excited to get to this one.

    Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences by Anne Lamott and Neal Allen

    I got this one on a whim after seeing two prominent writers on the cover. I look forward to the day my draft is complete and I can go over it with a fine-toothed comb, transforming the sentences into something readable. I haven’t read too much of it yet, but I already appreciate the light-hearted banter between Allen and Lamott as they express their methods for improving sentences.

  • Inspiration in No Kings

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    My quilted flag with scrap materials.

    Happy No Kings Day!

    If you live in the United States, you know the chaos and turmoil our current administration is putting the world through (war, public executions, concentration camps, lack of due process, funding for genocides, voter suppression, and eradication of intellectualism just to name a few). Things are looking quite familiar.

    It’s quite the mental exercise to keep writing and creating art during times such as these, but it is important that the arts remain one of many focal points in maintaining free expression. George Orwell, Karl Marx, Octavia Butler, and a whole host of others wrote deeply about the profound effects of authoritarian movements, erosion of public trust, and class division, and it is important that we find the parallels between their observations and today’s climate.

    Authoritarian leadership (when power is concentrated in the hands of the few) is corrosive to democracy and I find it ironic that individuals who love to spitfire the importance of free speech and freedom are perfectly fine with having their own freedoms stripped away by an old fool of a man who says “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap,” and the crowd around him claps.

    This reality heavily inspired my decision to change the trajectory of my novel. I originally went the typical fantasy route of putting monarchs and nobility front and center. Then, I I thought, what if we stopped writing books about authoritarian emperors and kings and wrote about authoritarian politicians and unsavory businessmen? What if the evils are Artificial Intelligence, Monopolies, and Deregulation? What if the threats are about humans losing their dignity and autonomy? What if the degeneration of morality is a country where profits are favored over real human lives?

    I don’t have enough space in my book to take every little detail of our political landscape and thrust it into my story, but I do have a backlog of ideas. There’s always something that happens here and writers are often told to write what they know. Write what they see. Write what they experience. Right now, I am experiencing anger because as human beings we can do better than what we have been doing. We do not have to accept abuse, distortion, murder, and dehumanization as the norm.

    Take care today and create art. Join a cause. Be someone’s friend.

  • 3 Star Ratings Aren’t Bad: A Ramble About Book Ratings

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    Just to get this sentiment out of the way, everyone is entitled to their opinion and taste in books. We can’t all be the same, and neither should we be.

    That said, I was on Goodreads the other day and I couldn’t help but notice a staggering number of books I’ve loved receive 2 or 3 stars, or just barely graze 4 stars. Some books that lack a cohesive plot, comprehensive characters, and horrid pacing receive 5 stars with an emphasis that they would be given more if the rating system allowed it.

    Obviously, my humble opinion in a tiny corner of the internet is not a great barometer for measuring what sells and what does not (especially since I am an unpublished writer), but I am not the only reader out there noticing the degrading quality of stories. Much of the language appears monolithic (lacks variety), almost like the corporate-speak expected in blogs and articles so that it will be detected by Search Engine Optimization.

    As an aspiring fantasy writer and a fantasy reader, I can’t help but notice the constant barrage of modern squabbling language thrown into medieval or fantasy worlds, recycled romance tropes, throwing every mythological creature and Lord of the Rings race in sight into the world, and/or battle-royales within school settings. I was once excited to dive into Goodreads for some good fantasy after reading mostly literary fiction the past year. The onslaught of rabid 5-star ratings convinced me that I would have an amazing time with today’s fantasy stories. Boy, was I heartbroken.

    Can we please bring back 3-star ratings for stories?

    My Adventures with Romantasy and the 5-Star problem

    As an example of my disappointment, after reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, Quicksilver by Callie Hart, and Silver Elite by Dani Francis, I am struggling to understand the appeal of these stories when the main characters do incredibly idiotic things just to move the plot along, and the world-building seems so chaotic. For the record, I do commend these authors for their success, and it is wonderful that these stories have profoundly touched readers; I hope these authors continue to hone their craft. I also envy how quickly they can turn out books and I look up to their incredible holding power and marketing. I aspire to that sort of success for my own work one day.

    I mainly wish that the ratings reflected truly powerful prose, introspective characters, and thoughtful themes.

    ***Minor Spoilers Ahead***

    Violet of Fourth Wing is supposed to be incredibly intelligent and a weak fighter…, yet she often makes decisions that put herself and other people in danger. She also fights with daggers—which is a horrible choice for a supposedly physically weak and petite woman who needs to overpower an attacker (a polearm or sword would be the better choice).

    Saeris from Quicksilver is supposed to be street smart, and she quickly allows herself to get tricked into a servitude spell because she missed the not-so-fine print (it was glarying) about having to fully comply with orders in exchange for rescuing her brother.

    Wren from Silver Elite is the worst. She is supposed to hate the authoritarian government and military oppressing her, and in the first chapter she sleeps with a soldier from that faction. On top of that, she clearly cares more about “hot guys” than her uncle who was executed by these same authoritarians because she almost never mentions him again.

    ***End of Spoilers***

    If you are a fan of these stories, that is fine; I myself have my guilty reading pleasures. My argument is not that these “okay” or “bad” books should stop getting published. Instead, I believe we should bring back harsher, nuanced, criticism and honest reflections on these stories and their characters. I would give these popular romantasy stories 3-stars—except for Silver Elite. Silver Elite is easily 1-star for the most air-headed protagonist of all time. She’s an unreliable narrator to the max, boasting skill and ferocity without the evidence to back it up. She has two brain cells fighting for third place.

    Bring Back 3-Star Ratings!

    3-Star Ratings aren’t inherently bad. They recognize that a book possesses all of the components of a structured story: a clear plot, standard characters, and a theme. Perhaps they merely leave the reader wanting more, or the message was unremarkable. Perhaps the rhetoric or prose was too plain or predictable. None of these traits, however, make it a bad story.

    5-Star Ratings should be given to outstanding stories—stories with careful, beautifully written prose, thought-provoking themes, and words that leave impressions on the minds of readers. Granted, gauging what constitutes these characteristics is challenging since personal taste is also valid. I would love if stories did not insult the reader with obvious inconsistencies.

    I hope that if or when my own stories come out that I get roasted as well. Tell me when my plots don’t make sense. Tell me when my characters do unreasonalby idiotic things.

  • I Gave Up on Reading Goals and Just Read

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    Just a few days before October!

    As the year comes to a close, I look back on my book snake and the reading goal I set for myself of forty-eight books for the year. With three months left, I am at twenty-one books—twenty-seven left to go. I am definitely not going to make that goal unless I read short novels and novellas for the remainder of the year.

    And, that’s just the thing: is it worth reaching a reading goal when I am doing so based on the length of the book rather than the content and context of the book? What about the book’s quality? My overall experience and enjoyment?

    Intentional Reading

    Yesterday, I picked up Titus Groan from the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. It was published in 1946, and is part of the era of fantasy literature before Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I was inspired to get my hands on the trilogy after learning of fantasy books from the same era in a video essay.

    After only fifteen pages, I was hooked by Peake’s extensive imagery, attention to body language, and the gothic details that put the introductory characters of Rottcodd and Flay on full display as colorful eccentrics of a beaten down estate.

    It was the kind of imagery I am desperate to have. The book reminded me why I read. And, it isn’t to consume as many short books as possible. I read to feel. I read to process. I read to explain the world around me beyond the limitations of my five senses. I read because I love a good story. And, I read to make me a better writer. My quest to consume short novels fulfilled very little of my reason to read.

    Instead of trying to reach a goal, I decided to just read. The practice is enjoyable again.

    Stifling Reading Goals

    There is nothing wrong with having a reading goal. For my purposes, however, a more tangible goal is to read more books than the year before. Or, read three philosophy books. Consuming books with the empty goal that is numbers takes away the power and impact that a book can inflict on the reader. This impact is what I seek.

    Of course shorter books are capable of this impact. However, the impact (at least for me) should be based on the quality and content of the writing over the number of books read. I can read a hundred books full of empty calories. Or, I can keep on chugging along with my slow reading of better stories.

  • The Outsiders’ Book Club: The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

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    I bought The Cat Who Saved Books as part of my Japanese Book Haul some time ago. Cats and books are among my weaknesses (and good yarn), so I couldn’t resist the gorgeous cover art and the premise of the tale.

    Sosuke Natsukawa’s novel tells the story of Rintaro Natsuki, a quiet and introverted high school student who gets sucked into a journey with a cat named Tiger to save books in peril.

    It reminds me a bit of Bruce Lee’s unfinished Game of Death, in which his character has to encounter levels of opponents to complete his objective. This this story’s case, it is levels of book abusers! Our novel, however, is a tad more lighthearted and with a lot less blood.

    Without spoiling the story, however, The Cat Who Saved Books is a heartwarming read with many allusions to how books are often treated today: mass produced content or fodder for Artificial Intelligence training data. This book feels like a critique and a metaphor for the industrial hydraulic cutters and high-speed sheet-feeders AI companies use to train their learning language models.

    Other times, the book is a metaphor for people that treat books solely as containers of information. People today are impatient to “get to the point” and neglectful of reflecting on the words read. Too Long Didn’t Read is a sentiment shared among many who see a wall of text and their instinct is to stop reading—so, they opt for summaries instead.

    This book reignited my love for reading at a time when I began reading less. Even though I personally enjoy reading, it is still a practice that requires one to train their attention span in a post-modern world of distractions and addictions.

    This is definitely a short and kind read for those passionate about the written word and keeping it alive.

  • The Outsiders’ Book Club: City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim

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    A City of Night Birds was one of the books my friend’s bookclub chose as the “romance” pick of the season. Although, truth be told, what I adored about this story was that the romance had less to do with the relationships between couples; it was more like the relationship between an artist and their artform.

    A City of Night Birds tells the tale Natalia Leonova, a prima ballerina in Russia facing depression and an identity crisis after a fateful incident rips her ability to dance away from her.

    Highly poetic and beautifully metaphorical, it is a story artists know too well: the seemingly impossible balance of the self, art, and the world beyond. What should be sacrificed for the sake of honing one’s craft? Can one sacrifice their craft for the importance of familial and societal obligations? Do we lose ourselves as artists to our work, or do we become the art? Does the art erase the rest of us?

    This is a book meant to be read carefully and slowly so as not to miss the rhythmic metaphors for Natalia’s mental and physical states. If a reader skims through the book, many ideas and reflections can get lost. The language is marvelous for reflecting on one’s own relationship with their art.

    This one is definitely one of my favorite books this year.

  • Tending to the Garden While Writing

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    In tending to the garden of my mind, I’ve neglected my actual garden. Summer has been brutal, and the heat has given me sun sickness more times than I can count. Many of my leafed babies deteriorated, resulting in pests, fungal infections, and overgrowth. My real garden is no longer pretty and requires a massive amount of love.

    With that said, I’m taking my first break (only a few days) from writing after five months—not because I’m burnt out—but because I want to take a few steps back and return to my story Eclipse with a fresh set of eyes.

    One of my favorite “break periods” involves literally touching grass—and dirt. And soil. And worms. And sticky sap and mildew.

    Thinking About My Story While Gardening

    Other than the typical benefits of spending time in nature, it’s a necessity for me as I’ve been using my gardening and hiking experience to flesh out one of my main characters in Eclipse. It’s inevitable that pieces of ourselves end up in all of our characters, but it’s fun to see them manifest through relaxing hobbies.

    This main character utilizes wood magic, which I am identifying as a practice that connects the magician to plants and fungi and allows the magician to manipulate it (with limitations), at will. She is in tune with the plants and earth around her, and she uses their knowledge to fuel her medicinal practices—which will be heavily relied on at a turning point in the story. When I garden, I sometimes pretend I am her, feeling the pulses of the soil as though my fingers are the mycorrhizal fungi.

    Although I’m not a Green Witch—a pagan practitioner of earth-based crafts—I do borrow some of the spiritual philosophies and practices such as honoring seasonal changes, herbalism, and Earth-friendly actions.

    I have to be honest that this main character is probably most inspired by my spiritual journey, and I like the idea of embedding the need for the quieter, natural living that technology has ripped away from us.

    The idea is to have her presence reflect what humanity has lost in its relentless pursuit of “progress” and “technological advancement”: connection to the environment. Don’t get me wrong; I love a good computer. However, as a millennial that has seen several generations of technology in the span of nearly four decades, I’ve grown tired of learning how to use another damn device.

  • Japanese Novel Haul

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    I have a soft spot for Japanese culture—surprisingly to most it did not begin with anime.

    It all started in elementary school where I attended a Quaker academy for primary school. We had a teacher named Yuki who taught us Japanese, shared folk traditions, and occasionally treated us with rice candy. We often sang a song called Teru Teru Bozu, a nursery rhyme about a little ghost-like charm hung outside of windows to encourage sunny weather. We made our own teru teru bozu, and I hung mine on the window of our Brooklyn apartment until he got too dusty and crinkly.

    Since then, I’ve dabbled a little bit in the language (I am far, far, far from fluent), cultural documentaries, practiced martial arts for over fifteen years, and incorporated homemade teriyaki, miso soup, onigiri, karē raisu, and other goodies into our diet at home. Until I can save up the money to actually go one day, I have been pretty obsessed with reading translated media (because, again, I’m not fluent), which has led me to a Japanese book haul one day.

    There was a major sale at my local bookstore that highlighted quite a few pieces by contemporary Japanese authors:

    Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

    If Cats Disapeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

    The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

    Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima

    Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

    Not sure what to expect, but I’m excited to see what they bring to the mind. You can tell that I have a weakness for cats on covers.

    The last Japanese literary novel I read was Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of the Hills. Ishiguro is a Japanese-British author born in Nagasaki, but raised in the United Kingdom. He has a creative history of not only written work, but cinematic work and musical composition.

    His debut novel from 1982, A Pale View of the Hills, tells the story of Etsuko, an elderly mother grappling with the suicide of her eldest daughter. As Etsuko reminisces of her younger years in post war japan, her life and unwinds as she navigates uncertainty, accountability, and autonomy in her life.

    This narrative reads like strolling in the middle of a fog… in a good way. It is a mysterious read that reminds me of how it feels to be mentally and physically stagnant in a world of constrictions. Unlike the haul novels listed, Ishiguru’s novel was written in English first.

    Lost in Translation

    Of course, ideas and concepts are lost in translation when reading books are interpreted, however, it is still fascinating and important to read stories from (in my situation) outside of the United States. The perspectives, themes, and values presented offer new insight that my limited American experience cannot fathom.

  • The Outsiders’ Book Club: Weyward by Emilia Hart

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    Weyward was my introduction to Emilia Hart, as well as the beginnings of a beautiful friendship with a colleague of mine. Around the time when I had thought I would never read or write again with the same passion as I had as a teenager, I was invited to join a book club at my school by a fellow English teacher whom I originally thought I had nothing in common with. If this isn’t the greatest lesson in not judging a book by its cover, then I don’t know what is.

    Weyward is a story of female survival in a world dominated by relentless misunderstandings, accusations of witchcraft, and the consequences of losing oneself when patriarchal dominance removes one’s agency. It isn’t quite a secret that women who were different—I think the appropriate phrase is women who just wanted to be themselves—faced all manners of persecution including death when they refused or simply were unable to navigate society at large. Weyward shows such dynamics through the interconnected stories of three generations of women with subtle weyward gifs.

    If you’re cautious about dabbling in the occult, this is definitely a sanitized read. It gets moderately dark and there is a touch of suspense when danger rears its ugly head with each protagonist. I did, however, wish there were more interactions with the antagonists; they did not seem to be entirely fleshed out, appearing somewhat “evil for the sake of being evil.” I would have appreciated more interactions between them and the protagonists to intensify the plot’s friction.

    Otherwise, it is still quite an enjoyable read, and I appreciated the subtleness of the magic. It aligns more with everyday folk magic as opposed to complex magical systems with mages and wizards.