Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Why I Write (And How, too)
Tonight’s blog post topic is deceptively simple: why I write. I say this topic is “deceptively simple” for a reason. That’s because why I do something is often the hardest thing to explain.
I just know that I must do something — I must create, even though many times it’s a major struggle to come up with something new that I like, that I think others might like, also, and that holds together in the form of a story — or I am not being my best self.
I am a musician, but I can’t always play — in fact, in recent years I have hardly been able to play at all due to carpal tunnel syndrome (fortunately I can still type, and most nights type easily; many people with CTS cannot) — so that area of creativity has been denied me even though the music is still there. Often, I’m able to express a little of it through composing it, though sometimes I don’t have enough of an idea to do anything aside from hum it or whistle it (which can startle passers-by, but it’s an unconscious thing most of the time). And if I do that for long enough, I’ll end up with a compositional idea that I can write a piece around.
It’s a similar thing for writing, whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction. You get an idea, which may or may not work. You need to be able to give it time in order to develop the story better. Along the way, you realize you need to research many, many things (it depends on the story you want to tell, but usually there’s anywhere from a small amount of research to a significant amount of research involved), and you do so in order to better deepen and broaden your story. (Note this isn’t done just to show off the fact that you actually did your homework; that’s pointless and absurd.) You need to understand your character as much as you possibly can in order to write a better story that readers not only understand, but feel in their hearts as something that could, possibly, be real no matter how much magic or hard speculative science that sounds like magic might be present within your story.
Then, you work on this idea as you’re able — in many cases, I’m working on a number of ideas all at the same time and whatever one is strongest, that’s the one I develop (though other writers will tell you what I’m about to say, too; sometimes the story just will not let you go and you write that because it’s there and is quite “loud” so you want to shut it up — those are the easiest times, by far, to be a writer or composer, as the same thing happens with music for me from time to time) — and development takes place along the way.
Unfortunately you cannot often rush this development, and some stories develop much faster than others. If you’re on a deadline, yes, this focuses your attention nicely — but it still may not help you figure out what the story is.
The only way to do that — know what the story is about from beginning to end — is to get the right amount of inspiration working with your high amount of perspiration (in other words, how much energy you are putting into the act of writing or creating this story), then listen to your intuition. Your intuition will tell you when, deep in your heart or mind, that you finally have enough of your story and can write it even if you’re not sure exactly what it is that you’re going to end up with.
Because of this process, sometimes a story will seem to have no action (internal or external) until you have the entire thing on paper; then you can figure out what’s missing and add it, or perhaps you’ll get a good lead from a friend who writes or one of your first-readers who loves to read your stuff and knows what you’re good at that isn’t in this particular manuscript . . . at any rate, along the way you figure out what you need with any given story, and you add it. (With or without help.) Or you end up putting this story on the back burner until you figure it out.
That’s why I say you must be persistent, as well as be hard-working, and that you must trust your creative impulses. If you don’t do all of these things, whatever you end up with will not be something anyone else wants to read — and even if you do all those things, it still might not be what anyone else wants to read. But in that case, at least you know you’ve done your best, and have at bare minimum written some more of the putative “million words of trash” you need to get out of your system before you can finally start writing quality stuff.
So, what is the short answer as to why I write? Simple. Because I can’t stop writing. And I hope that along the way, you, the reader, will enjoy reading what I write because truly, I can’t shut up anyway.
In other words, since I’m going to keep writing no matter what, you may as well enjoy the ride (whatever ride I can take you on with my storytelling, that is) as much as you possibly can.
Kate and Prince William’s Nuptials: Who Cares?
Today is a recount-free zone here at my blog, mostly because I actually observed the statewide Wisconsin mandatory judicial recount for myself and am exhausted from doing so. This is why I decided to look at the other huge worldwide issue — that of Prince William of England’s upcoming wedding to Kate Middleton — and have come to a decision regarding my feelings on the matter.
To wit: who cares?
Honestly, I don’t get the hype here that has provoked story after story after story on network news, cable news, and on the Internet. It’s not like this is a sudden thing — after all, Kate and Prince William have dated for seven years, right? So while I’ll give Kate and the Prince some real props for their persistence, and some more for getting to know each other very well before committing to a marriage, I still do not understand the build-up to the royal wedding.
Yes, Prince William is the likely successor to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, as it’s rumored that his father, Prince Charles, will be bypassed in William’s favor. Yes, Prince William, like his brother Prince Harry, looks very much like his deceased mother, Princess Diana; yes, his mother would assuredly be very proud of her son getting married regardless of his station. (There’s more press when you’re royal, true. But any mother is likely to feel much the same, royalty or no, when her son is about to walk down the aisle and make a lifelong commitment.)
Still. I did understand some of the hype behind the Prince Charles and the then-Lady Diana Spencer because she was quite young (twenty, I think), appeared quite innocent, and she was leaving her entire way of life behind at such a young age. She was young, fresh-faced, entrancing in her perceived innocence and someone everyone in the world could root for because of all of these qualities.
This marriage — well, it’s not the same. Both Prince William and Kate Middleton are in their late twenties, and are not seen as young, innocent, immature, naïve, entrancing in their innocence — no, none of that. And while that’s actually helpful to their long-term hopes for a marriage (the better you know each other, the better chance you have for a successful marriage), it doesn’t exactly make for a riveting story-line.
Part of the reason the Prince Charles-Lady Diana wedding was so interesting to watch was the contrast between the then-kindergarten teacher/assistant Diana and her betrothed, Prince Charles — an international bon vivant, painter, polo player, sometime diplomat and much, much more. And Charles was considerably older than Diana when he married her; she was only 20, and he was 32.
So what we had in the Charles-Diana wedding was a handfasting of opposites, and that was compelling theatre that interested many. While what we have now in the William-Kate nuptials is more the meeting of the minds, two people who know each other well and seem much better-prepared to marry, and while that’s all well and good for both their personal and dynastic hopes, a compelling drama it does not make.
So I reiterate: Why should I care about this wedding, again?
My Review for “Nocturnal Origins” is Appreciated
Folks, Amanda S. Green, who wrote NOCTURNAL ORIGINS for Naked Reader Press, has thanked me for my review, which has to be a first. (Or is it a second? Whatever it is, it happens very infrequently, so I’m celebrating it.)
Here’s her blog:
http://amandasgreen.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/if-its-tuesday-it-must-be/
And her quote:
Nocturnal Origins is doing pretty good so far as an e-book. Actually, I’m thrilled with the preliminary numbers I’m seeing, but would, of course, love them to be better. What author doesn’t? And I’m absolutely ecstatic about the reviews it’s gotten so far. I have to give a special shout out to Barb Caffrey at Shiny Book Review and say thanks for her review.
Green also mentioned that a trade paperback version of NOCTURNAL ORIGINS is now available and can be ordered from Amazon.com here (note that I lifted this link verbatim from her Web site; I still don’t know how to embed links).
I think Amanda Green is a writer to keep your eye on, as I’ve said before; NOCTURNAL ORIGINS is a suspenseful urban fantasy with shape-shifters and is also a good, solid police procedural. I loved her main character, Detective Mackenzie “Mac” Santos (who goes from Sergeant to Lieutenant in the novel), as she’s strong but not invulnerable, and has obvious flaws. (I do love me some flawed characters; they’re easier to empathize with.) Best yet, it’s intended to be the first book in a series, which means we’ll have a great deal more to read and discuss in the months and years to come.
The Naked Reader is putting out high-quality fiction, and I urge you to check them out. Whether you’re a reader, a writer, or just a bibliophile, you’ll appreciate what NRP (the short-form version of Naked Reader Press) is doing.
Updates: More pending recalls (Dems and Rs), etc.
Before we get to the latest folks being recalled, the first update has to do with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. The two sides (Prosser and Kloppenburg) have come to an agreement about the recount, and it will start next Monday. Please see this story for further details, which gives details about how this particular state-wide recount (the first in twenty-two years) will take place:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/120518594.html
Now, as for the newest pending recalls — the drive to recall the Republican 8 continues, as the committee to recall Republican Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) turned in 30,000 signatures — significantly more than the 20,043 signatures required by law (1/4 of the last election) — to see her recalled.
However, we now have three Democrats — Jim Holperin (D-Conover), Bob Wirch (D-Kenosha) and Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) — who have had recall petitions filed against them. The signatures needed for Holperin was 15,960, with over 23,000 turned in; the signatures needed for Wirch was 13,537, with over 18,000 turned in, and the signatures for Hansen was 13,852 with nearly 19,000 turned in.
See this link for further details:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/120430074.html
The main difference between the Dems and the Rs at this point is that two of these three Dems appear to be in “safe,” heavily Democratic districts — Hansen and Wirch both have districts that went for Kloppenburg in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election, while Holperin’s district is the only one I’d really tend to be worried about — while all five of the Rs with recalls pending could easily lose and lose big.
Here’s a quote from the rally to recall Alberta Darling held on Thursday, April 21, 2011, courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article of the same date (link posted above):
Kristopher Rowe of Shorewood, a Darling recall leader who created the Facebook page that sparked the campaign, told several hundred people at the Kletzsch Park rally that they weren’t done until Darling was voted out of office.
“We’re going to finish, and we’re going to finish strong,” he said.
Now, you might be wondering why, in particular, recall groups have focused on getting rid of Alberta Darling. It’s because she was co-chair of the committee that allowed Gov. Scott Walker (R)’s “budget-repair bill” into the whole Senate; she had all the power in the world to stop that bill from ever coming to light unless/until some of the worst problems with it were fixed, yet she refused to use it.
Further from the Journal-Sentinel article:
Darling is the fifth Republican state senator against whom petitions have been filed.
Darling, a co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, is a central figure in the budget battles that spawned recall efforts against eight Republican and eight Democratic senators. Her opponents clearly will try to hang the budget on her, as did one rally speaker, who referred to the proposed budget as “both immoral and bad economics.”
As I’ve said before, the other four Republicans with recalls pending are: Luther Olson (R-Ripon), Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse), Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) and Sheila Harsdorf (R-Hudson/River Falls).
And finally, it is confirmed that both Sheldon Wasserman (former Rep., who nearly beat Darling in 2008, losing by about 1000 votes) and Sandy Pasch (the current Rep., D-Whitefish Bay) are seriously thinking about challenging Darling in the pending recall election. (Note that the Journal-Sentinel had a PolitiFact article today saying it’s wrong to say any of these Senators have been recalled; all we can say is “recalls pending,” as I’ve been saying, or that the “recall petitions have been filed.”) Both are strong candidates, and the Journal-Sentinel rates this race as “the most competitive race . . . in the Milwaukee area” (there are five Senators, both R and Dem., who will have to run in recall elections providing the signatures hold up).
Because of the pending recount in the Kloppenburg-Prosser judicial race, it’s possible the recall petitions will take longer to “‘vet” than usual; the Government Accountability Board has been quite busy this year, with no signs of letting up, and it’s the GAB that must oversee both things.
Finally, in personal news, I have one good thing to report. I wrote 2000 words into part 47 of AN ELFY ABROAD last night, breaking a log-jam that had lasted three weeks after first talking with a friend about the story, then hearing from a different one why I should just give it up already. (Obviously I disagreed with my second friend.)
Otherwise, I just hit the six year and seven month observance in my personal “grief journey” . . . I tried hard to distract myself and even succeeded for a while, but then I wondered, “What the Hell am I doing?”
New Story Review at SBR for Dave Freer’s novella “Without a Trace”
Folks, Dave Freer’s “Without a Trace” (from the new Naked Reader e-books, www.nakedreader.com) was a fun middle-grade read about two kids from South Africa, Mike and Amos . . . Mike’s father has just fallen into a coma, and he’s afraid of being taken away from his home, so he and Amos go on an adventure and fall into a parallel version of South Africa. Their adventure is fun, and it carried me along effortlessly — I enjoyed reading “Without a Trace” thoroughly and truly hope it finds its audience.
Here’s the link to my book review at SBR:
Enjoy!
Quick Note about Naked Reader
Folks, I’ve been remiss about discussing the Naked Reader, which is at nakedreader.com — they’re a new e-book place and so far, they’ve accepted extremely high-quality manuscripts from Sarah A. Hoyt (writing as both herself, and as Sarah d’Almeida), Amanda S. Green, Kate Paulk, and Dave Freer . . . and I’m fortunate enough to get to review them all for Shiny Book Review.
Note that I’ve already reviewed DEATH OF A MUSKETEER, and will shortly be reviewing Green’s NOCTURNAL ORIGINS, Freer’s WITHOUT A TRACE and Paulk’s IMPALER, and I can tell you from what I’ve skimmed that all four of these books are very, very good. Better than that, they’re all in different genres — the first is a “Three Musketeers” pastiche that adds in stronger roles for the women in the Musketeers’ lives, the second is urban fantasy/suspense novel set in the present-day, the third is an alternate history located in South Africa (with suspense) and technically would probably be classified as a young adult/YA novel, and the fourth is a historical fantasy about everyone’s favorite vampire, Vlad the Impaler, who lived in the 1400s.
But best of all? This is a new e-book publisher that seems to really be going places: they know what they’re doing, they’ve accepted very high quality stuff, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about them so far.
Plus, they want people to review their stuff, which is always an excellent sign.
So please, if you want to read good e-books, go to nakedreader.com and buy some — Heck, buy several. And if you’re looking for a good place to send your work, try them out as well, but keep an eye out as to when they’re open for submissions next and remember, always be professional.
Tired, ill, and reading
This past week hasn’t been one of my best.
As to what’s wrong? Well, I hit the six years, six months mark in my grief observance . . . what a passive way to say that I’ve now been without my husband for over six years and six months. And I hate it, but can’t do anything about it, save remember my beloved husband Michael as he was while he was alive — and know to the bottom of my soul that we will be together again in eternity if at all humanly possible.
Oh, yeah. And I’ve been sick, too — sinus stuff and flu symptoms, which hasn’t stopped me from looking for work (and wouldn’t have stopped me from accepting a job had one been offered) . . . still no luck on the job front.
Before I go on, I wanted to mention the passing of Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to ever be nominated on a major party ticket for Vice President. She’s still one of only two women to be nominated (Sarah Palin being the other) . . . Ms. Ferraro was a tough, strong, smart, capable and confident woman who would’ve made an exceptional Vice President and an even better President, had she ever had the opportunity.
Ms. Ferraro was a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton for President, and spoke for me as well as for many others after the 5/31/08 debacle that was the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee that decided the fate of Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic nomination — not at the hands of the voters, but instead at the hands of the DNC itself. Ms. Ferraro was astonished and disgusted, and her clear, strong voice helped smooth the waters afterward and made our dissent as HRC Dems more forceful, coherent and logical. I will miss Ms. Ferraro and her tenacity, and I hope “The Good Place (TM)” will appreciate Ms. Ferraro and bring her joy, peace and whatever else she wants as her productive and happy afterlife.
Now, on to less important stuff.
This past week I’ve read at least six books, most of which I’m going to review at Amazon.com and/or Shiny Book Review down the line. The best of the lot was Louisa Young’s MY DEAR, I WANTED TO TELL YOU, as it’s a horrifically realistic portrait of World War I, but IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson was also very good and very horrifying, the latter book being about Ambassador to Germany William Dodd and his family, who served during 1933-1937 being stationed in Berlin and saw first-hand what was going on with Adolf Hitler, Josef Goebbels, and all the others. The only book I really couldn’t get behind was Gina Showalter’s UNRAVELED, this being the sequel to INTERTWINED (I liked INTERTWINED, mind you) . . . just didn’t buy most of it, and the reason I didn’t buy it was that the characterization wasn’t as solid as in the previous novel. (When your main character, Aden, is a guy with a bunch of dead people inside his head, you need to believe in him or the concept doesn’t work. I bought it in INTERTWINED, didn’t buy it in UNRAVELED. Would still give Ms. Showalter one more chance to sell me on this universe down the line, though, because of the previous, far-stronger novel.)
I’ve also had a problem recently in focusing my attention on one thing, or even on any ten things . . . I believe this is due to exhaustion, and being ill, and trying to pretend I’m neither one.
Well, the time for pretending is over; I hope by saying out loud, in public, even (as blogging is a public endeavor even if no one reads it but me), that I’m going to take some down-time if I can makes sense.
Other than that, I continue to watch Wisconsin politics. The Governor’s budget repair bill was stalled in the courts, but the Republicans tried an unusual end-around that I’m not even sure I can describe — they believe by doing this rather odd thing (you have to publish a bill specifically by the Secretary of State’s office in Wisconsin or it’s not legal, and after it’s published it takes ten days to take effect; this hasn’t happened as a Dane County court enjoined that with a temporary restraining order, but a different place in the government has published the bill and the Republicans believe that’s enough and the bill — which stops the state from collectively bargaining with employees in public employee unions — is now law. I have my doubts on that score but have no doubt — zero — that the original judge who gave the temporary restraining order will have more to say tomorrow and that any legal action will be officially blocked by five PM tomorrow.) Note that the Wisconsin Republicans did this weird “end-around” thing after 5 PM on a Friday because they wanted to make positive news, such as it is, and mute the negative news a little . . . tomorrow I’m sure all the crap will hit the fan, again.
Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot to add that one of my friends, whom I respect highly, has told me that he thinks I should not write the Elfyverse (my universe, my concept, my voice) or Michael’s universes (granted, all of those were Michael’s concept and me trying to match Michael’s voice, which is very tough) and instead should think of something else to write and do that.
Well, here’s my thought on that — it’s up to me what I do, and these days I’m glad to get any ideas at all. If I can get one story consistently talking to me so I can do more with it, I’m going to work with it — whether it’s a new story, an existing story in my Elfyverse or an existing story in Michael’s, it doesn’t matter. Only the strength of the story matters . . . I just hope I’ll start hearing something after I heal up a little, because right now none of my stories are talking to me, at all.
Note that I appreciate my friend for saying what he did even though I feel he’s flat wrong. Being able to honestly communicate is important, even if you don’t always agree — probably because you can’t always agree, it’s important to have some real communication going on even if it’s, “I really don’t like what you’re doing, Barb, and wish you’d stop.” (My response wouldn’t be printable, I’m afraid, but that’s the drawback to free, honest and open communication.)
Oh, and last, Writers of the Future bounced both of my stories out in the last two quarters . . . what else is new?
The Importance of Military and Strategic Planning
Folks, I’ve been reading SEVEN DEADLY SCENARIOS by Andrew F. Krepinevich this week, and it’s a reminder that we need strategic and military planning as a country. This is an especially timely reminder because we have three wars currently going on — in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Libya — and if we don’t use our fighting forces wisely, we may as well kiss them good bye and save steps.
What Krepinevich does by postulating seven scenarios that could incapacitate the US of A (one being a pandemic, another the global collapse of the economy, the third an unexpected attack by China, and four others), military planners need to do in order to try to plan for the inevitable. Planning exists for a reason; if we refuse to plan, we run the risk of having completely and totally unanticipated things happen. Military “futurists” (as Krepinevich describes himself) try to anticipate things well in advance as best they can, then hope someone will learn from their scenarios so if these horrible things happen, we as a country won’t be caught flat-footed.
The most chilling things I learned from SEVEN DEADLY SCENARIOS are historical, however; from the introduction, I found out that military exercises in 1932 — yes, 1932! — showed the vulnerability of the United States at Pearl Harbor, yet the only thing the “games arbiter” did was to say that what the opposing forces in the war games did was “out of bounds” because they came in on Sunday, before dawn, and did something unprecedented.
Let me say this again. Everyone said when Pearl Harbor was hit, “How could this happen? Why would anyone do this? Especially in this way? We didn’t see it coming!” Yet the United States did have warning. Their own people, at least a few of ’em, saw vulnerability in advance and yet they weren’t heeded.
Astonishing.
Then, in another historical incident, the German panzer battalions showed how quickly they could advance on a country or nation during war games exercises in 1937 — yet France did not pay enough attention (didn’t realize the blitzkrieg was coming for ’em) and felt in 1940 that they’d have many months to resist Hitler. And were wrong, because as we all now know, France fell after only six weeks, then were under Hitler’s domination until the end of the war in 1945.
And finally, Lieutenant General (retired) Paul van Riper, in what was called the “Millenium Challenge,” found ways to exploit the vulnerability of our current high-tech military forces but was ignored — once again, the war games “arbiters” ruled what van Riper was doing was “out of bounds” and the rules were changed so the current high-tech military could win the Millenium Challenge for themselves. And the lessons van Riper was trying to teach as commander of the “Red” (basically, he was aping the military capacity of Third World, mostly-Muslim countries, proving that low-tech does not equal stupid) were once again blown off.
Look. I would prefer we didn’t have wars, much less three at once. But since we do have wars, and it looks like we’ll always have a need for fighting men and women, we’d best start learning how to use our people effectively and learn from things like the Millenium Challenge rather than finding a way to make the current crop of military commanders feel good about their current forces — especially as I thought “self esteem” was not something military commanders were supposed to concern themselves with (most especially not their own self-esteem, such as when they rig war games to provide an outcome favorable for themselves as was most certainly explicated by anecdotal evidence by Krepinevich).
These SEVEN DEADLY SCENARIOS are scary, especially as there’s no conclusion to them — Krepinevich lays the stuff out there, then it just ends, almost as if the reader is placed into the Oval Office and must, for one moment, realize the burdens placed upon the Commander-in-Chief. And they’re even scarier when you realize these scenarios must already be known or Krepinevich wouldn’t be talking about ’em; the ones that have been kept private must be even worse, and that is truly appalling indeed.
Book Reviews: Taking a Second Look
Sometimes it warrants taking a second look at a book; here’s a few books I’ve looked at in the past few years more than once after a review, and why.
First, the only book review I’ve ever had with more than one negative comment at Shiny Book Review was David Drake’s WHAT DISTANT DEEPS (which you can easily find here: http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/what-distant-deeps-an-appealing-departure/) I’d said that I didn’t understand why the hero, Captain Daniel Leary, didn’t seem to understand that his best friend and confidante, Adele Mundy, wanted more from him than that and I somewhat took the easy way out in refusing to define what I was talking about. This called many people to tell me, publicly or privately, that I didn’t know what the (bleep) I was talking about . . . anyway, that review requires more explication, which I’m now going to provide.
Adele Mundy is a very complex woman, and I think David Drake has done a great job in adding to her character through eight RCN (Royal Cinnabar Navy) books thus far. But she has a lot of built-in tension, and all of the references back to her family (which were murdered, horribly, by political enemies) make it clear she wants more from Daniel Leary than he’s capable of providing.
My problem was that I’d clearly said at first this was a romantic thing that she wanted. This really wasn’t it, so I went back and softened this slightly — now in the review I say that “Mundy . . . cannot make Move One” due to her own background — but that, too, wasn’t enough.
Several folks who wrote to me pointed to things author Drake pointed out in his personal blog or at the Baen’s Bar Web site (go to www.baen.com and you can find the links from there), but I believe you find what meaning is there from the text alone. And that meaning in this case shows tension for Adele Mundy every time she thinks about Daniel Leary . . . yet the fact is Adele really doesn’t seem interested in romance with Leary or anyone. So then the problem becomes, rather than romantic love, what, truly, is it that Adele wants from Daniel Leary?
The Greeks had three different words for what we’d all lump in as one word — “love.” The closest to what Adele seems to want from Leary is philios, the love of a friend or brother, yet this might not be the true and complete reading (the only thing I am sure of is that Adele does not want eros, or physical love, from Daniel Leary). Philios is a type of intellectual love where a very smart person can appreciate someone else for his intellect or learning or perhaps even for his high compassion for others, but only on the intellectual or friendship planes.
Then there’s agape, which is a deeper love of friendship than philios, though it can have elements of philios in it (and sometimes even eros as well). Agape is more of a spiritual love than philios; it also can be thought of as the love of God or Deity, though to my mind that’s not really what the Greeks were about. (My hunch is that the Greeks didn’t really have a great word for the love of the Deity, so they threw it in with the love one person had for another person that was unconditional — because agape is definitely considered an unconditional love, and aren’t we supposed to love the Deity unconditionally?)
At any rate, Adele clearly wants philios, and probably agape too, from Daniel Mundy. He’s more than a brother, more than a friend, but can never be a lover due to her own background. I did not explain this well in my review and I’m sorry.
The next book that I looked at again, this time at the request of the author in question (Troy CLE), was OLIVION’S FAVORITES (available at Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Olivions-Favorites-Marvelous-World-Troy/dp/1416942165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300240110&sr=8-1 ). This was a book that I’d received through the Amazon Vine program and, quite frankly, did not understand at all the first time I read it. Troy CLE’s universe started with THE MARVELOUS EFFECT (available from Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Effect-World/dp/1416942157/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 ), a really fun book about a good African-American kid, Louis Proof, but I hadn’t read that book and had no idea that book even existed when I read OLIVION’S FAVORITES.
Now, here was the deal with OLIVION’S FAVORITES. CLE’s strategy was to write this book — which actually is “part 1 1/2” of the MARVELOUS WORLD series (being the book that in sequence overlapped somewhat with the first book of the series, THE MARVELOUS EFFECT) — because so very much happened to Louis (and his friends Cyndi and Devon) that he couldn’t depict in THE MARVELOUS EFFECT that he really felt it needed to be told as a story by itself. Making things a little more difficult, in the ARC version I got, there was absolutely nothing depicting anything that had happened in THE MARVELOUS EFFECT (nothing before this one section, which CLE had to take out of the previous book, at any rate), so I had to view OLIVION’S FAVORITES only on its own merits. But I still didn’t get it and said so, giving it initially only two stars (though three for kids).
At this point, author CLE asked me to please read THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, because he thought I’d enjoy it and he also thought it would help me understand what was going on with OLIVION’S FAVORITES. Since he asked nicely — and since I really, really don’t like dinging authors for things that they can’t help anyway (it wasn’t his fault there weren’t any explanatory notes in the ARC) — I went to read THE MARVELOUS EFFECT as I felt I could at least do that much.
I was floored.
THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, in short, was a whole lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much, giving it four stars and a strong recommendation at Amazon for both kids and adults.
So at this point, I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to re-read OLIVION’S FAVORITES and understood it far, far better; I still didn’t like it to the level of THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, but at least it was comprehensible and had some funny moments — I actually revised my review, said why I was revising it, and gave it three stars (and 3.5 for kids) and a qualified recommendation (my qualifier was this: please read the first book before this one or you’ll be like me the first time around — hopelessly lost).
There’s only been two other books I have re-reviewed like this (rather than writing two reviews at different places at the same time, these are reviews written on different days with more depth the second time around), the first being THE CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth (reviewed at SBR, with that review here: http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/the-crucible-of-empire-passes-rigid-test-another-outstanding-novel-from-flint-and-wentworth/ ), but the reason for that review was much different. There, I was unhappy with my first review at Amazon.com because I felt I hadn’t sufficient length to discuss the book, nor why I enjoyed it so very much; with Shiny Book Review in existence by then, I was able to take my further insights to SBR and review THE CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE to my heart’s content.
I also did this with David P. Clark’s GERMS, GENES AND CIVILIZATION, mostly because my first review at Amazon.com was a blurb and I felt I could do far, far better. Clark’s book required more of me than most books (even those on the economy and politics such as the recently-reviewed THE PREDATOR STATE which can be difficult to understand through the first fifteen readings or so), which is why I jumped at the chance to re-review it once I had the chance. Clark’s book is a rarity in that it’s not too technical to understand; the reason I’d wanted to do better is to explain it in a historical context, rather than just blurbing it as I did the first time . . . I was far more pleased with my second effort, which is here at SBR:
So while it doesn’t happen often, sometimes I do indeed have second thoughts about a book I’ve reviewed, and in general I will try to do something about it (whether it’s writing a new blog like this, or writing a whole new review if I think that’s warranted, I’ll try to make things right).
Now for the real question — does anyone else ever do this? (Or is it just another of my random quirks?)
Barb Caffrey's Blog 