Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Reading”
I’m probably the last to the “Year in Review” party, but I have a good excuse! The mountain behind my house was on fire. Literally. See, where we live is very dry and fireworks are banned in the entire municipality. But, someone decided to celebrate the new year with a flare. It landed on the mountain. And spread. 11,000 hectares …
There’s a lot of discussion these days about trigger warnings and how they should be handled. I don’t have any triggers, but I know some wonderful people who do. (Just like racism and homophobia, being a jerk can be cured by getting to know people.) I have a thought. A theory. A proposal, if you will. It’s about using technology to …
I know I said I wanted to look for unusual fairy tales, not the typical fare. But I learned a new factoid about this one over on Tor.com, which has some really great examinations of fairy tales, in their piece Charmed, I’m Sure: A Closer Look at Everyone’s Dream Prince. So let’s dive in. Source is pitt.edu. This is the Brothers …
I was waiting until I could find my copy of Old Peter’s Russian Tales–a collection of Russian fairy tales as retold by a British visitor (Arthur Ransome, of Swallows & Amazons fame) with British children in mind–only to discover that it’s available for free in multiple places online. D’oh. I did find my book. Unfortunately, because of the nature of …
Holy cow, I was not expecting to stumble across this. I came across the mere mention of a “hedgehog princess” and immediately had to look it up. I didn’t find a hedgehog princess, but I did find a half-human hedgehog boy who marries a princess! Yes, this requires some explanation. Let’s begin. Source: Pitt.edu Summary Like so many fairy tale …
There’s a princess and a tower and a wedding, and yet this isn’t one of the more popular stories. Go figure. Source: SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Annotated Maid Maleen Synopsis Maid Maleen is the daughter of a king. She falls in love with a prince, but her father is against the marriage. Being a reasonable parent, he has a tower built and …
My summary isn’t going to do this justice. Anderson writes evocatively of the setting and the people, and I’m just going to focus on the main plot. Here we go. Source: HCA.Gilead.org.il Summary In the countryside of France, a massive tree is felled. The villagers replace it with a young chestnut tree, which has a dryad living inside it. She is …
Doesn’t “donkey cabbages” sound like a kid’s insult? I’m not quite sure how to even summarize this one, it is that strange. Here we go anyway. Source: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Knickerbocker Edition) Summary One day, a huntsman is walking around and comes upon an old woman. He’s kind to her, and so she blesses him with a magic cloak (travel …
Not Thumbelina, but the German answer to the English Tom Thumb. You may well know the gist of this one. Source: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Knickerbocker Edition) Summary A lonely peasant couple wishes for a child. A boy is born to them, but he’s only as tall as a thumb, so they call him Thumbling. They are delighted to have him. …
New project. In order to better familiarize myself with the fairy tale cannon, once a month I’m going to read and examine a fairy story. Preferably not super popular stories, I’m looking for unusual stuff. I want to do this for my own edification, and also to give my blogging some structure. I like fairy tales as a genre, and …
I often get the question, “How is the writing going?” If I were to answer this strictly, meaning am I actually engaging in the act of writing down words, the answer would often be, “Ummmmm, I’ll get back to you on that.” I don’t write daily and when I do write it’s usually quickly. Because I do a lot of pre-work, untangling …
Author Laura Brown has a new blog post titled “My Diverse Reads of 2016” where she takes a look at how many books she read in the past year that count as diverse. This seems like a worthy experiment to me, so let’s dig into my data. In 2016 I read 67 books. I had challenged myself to read 55. This …
Major updates to the Monster Structure Worksheet! What is the MSW? It’s a combination of novel structure theories into one chart to help you visualize what-all is supposed to happen and when. I’ve been reading K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel [amazon asin=0985780401&template=add to cart] and I highly recommend it. It’s a great step-by-step walk-through of the parts of story structure. Weiland …
There’s been a bunch of talk in my spheres lately about what folks are reading to learn about their craft. I found a bunch of new things to explore, and I figure I should share. This week I’ll post about the blogs I follow, and later I’ll go into the books I love. RSS Feeds and Readers RSS stands for …
Or rather, an ode to Bridget. BRIDGET JONES helped keep my sanity intact on a very long flight. (Johannesburg to JFK is about 17+ hours.) I had bought it and THE EDGE OF REASON at the airport and I’m so glad I did. Every minute accounting of fat cells lost and gained reflected the tedious hours in the air. I fell in …
Last month I heard that Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS TRILOGY, aka LILITH’S BROOD, is in development as a TV series. At the time I had yet to read anything by her, and I figured this was a great opportunity to start. So I bought the first book and got stuck in. Ms. Butler’s books are quite different from what’s popular right …
This post is inspired by the #PitchWars mentors, who have said time and again that this contest is about community. Finding friends, CPs, commiserators, etc. And it occurred to me, “Why am I not talking DIRECTLY to the other wannabe mentees? We’re hopping to each other’s blogs, we want to get to know each other!” So, this is me talking …
When I made the transition from picture books to middle grade I devoured everything in my path. Amelia Bedelia. Mrs. Piggly-Wiggly. The Egypt Game. All of the American Girl series. Most of the Babysitters Club–we’re talking twenty books at a time. I was voracious, because I was still searching for something. When I was twelve, I found it. Tamora Pierce’s In …
V and I were having a discussion about what we call ‘obsessive love’. It often starts as instalove, but not always. It’s what happens when a character just can’t stop thinking about–and, more importantly, behaving in relation to–their love interest. Everything is about this person. They invade every thought, every scene. I do not like obsessive love. Worse, I don’t …