To welcome in this new year, AboutThatBook will continue our (hopefully) thought provoking introspectives and provide more book reviews and featured Q&As with readers and writers.
With audio books, e-books and the tried-and-true hardbacks and paperbacks, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a reader…or an author!
Happy 2018 and tune back-in next week for our first official bi-weekly post of the year.
TeAnne
#AmBlogging
I won! An author that I follow held a contest the other day and the prize was an advanced reader copy (ARC) of her soon-to-be released book. When I got the lovely white bubble envelope in my mailbox, I was sooo excited. I mean, like thrilled. I read the book in 10 hours – quite an accomplishment with kids, work, cooking and that annoying thing called sleep.
It took me until the end of the entire book , after all the anticipation had turned into reality, to recognize that the book didn’t resonate with me as much as I had hoped. I mean, it was a good book – but it wasn’t GREAT. Huh. Now what? If you know anything about ARCs it’s assumed that you write a review and post to Amazon, Goodreads or your blog to spread the word. And I felt at odds with not being able to give a glowing review when I had done so before with other books.
In the end, I wrote what I felt to be true and others wrote along the same thread as well. It was a surprise to know I wasn’t alone with my opinion, but it goes back to being authentic.
Readers have to be honest to keep writers honest.
If you want to read the review, it can be found on Amazon.
I read a dark book and I was dark.
I read a spiritual book and I was holy.
I read a sexy book and I was…
Absorbing the written word is a lot like eating – you are what you eat, and you are what you read, right? I’m not saying that if you read a book about a psycho killer, you’re bound for a staring role on Dateline Undercover, but it will definitely affect your mood.
That’s why I’ve found myself drawn to escapism reading recently – I just want to step away from this explosion of global antagonism, vengeance of Mother Nature, and the responsibility of upholding the shards of civility that are disassociated from our current existence. But that’s me. Some people find themselves drawn to works of conflict while experiencing a conflict. I mean how many millions of books on divorce are read by people battling a soon-to-be-ex and wresting with decisions on who gets the big screen TV?
The Telegraph published an interesting article a few years ago that got me thinking about why people read. Is it for escapism? To better ones’ mind? Or simply to relax? The study didn’t necessarily get into the ‘why,’ behind reading, but it did touch on the ‘what’….as in what happens to a body when they crack a book? The answer was surprising. The research found that reading a book for just six minutes reduced the stress level of the test subjects by 64%. That’s more than having a cup of tea, taking a walk or listening to music.
What’s even more interesting is that it didn’t matter what kind of book you read – as long as you were engrossed in the story. “This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and causes you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness,” so shared cognitive neuropsychologist Dr. David Lewis.
So it really doesn’t matter why you read, it’s just important that you do.
As a writer the findings of this study could be a little daunting – I mean, what author doesn’t want to guide someone into ‘an altered state of consciousness?’ Only a few of the lucky ones do. But as a reader or a writer…whoo-hoo! Bring on the six minutes of tranquility.
Check out the article when you get a chance: “Reading ‘can help reduce stress’”
#AmEdititng
* Edited
If you haven’t noticed, we’re away for the summer!
Be back in September. Have a topic you’d like to cover? Or maybe guest blog? Just let me know!
TeAnne@ChennaultCreative.com or JustRomanceforUs@gmail.com
I am supposed to be writing. Editing, to be more specific. I’ve been working on a novel since I was pregnant (and home) with my last child. She is now five and the book is done, kinda. Except…I’ve got to bring the hero in sooner and fix the trigger that starts our heroine down her path and make sure all the “L.A.’s” in the text have periods between the “L” and the “A.”
Instead of doing all of that, I’m on Facebook watching videos of people achieving great things. I’m on Twitter railing against the idiocies of the current administration. I’m secretly wondering if my coworker is somehow in my brain and stealing away all my revolutionary ideas. What I’m not doing is writing.
I read somewhere that writing is easy but hard to master – and it’s lonely. You have to calm your mind, focus on the words in front of you and lose yourself in the lives of the characters you’ve created. A discipline and a craft, it requires fortitude – a quality that by its very definition calls for “courage in pain or adversity.”
Do you write? How do you maintain your commitment to getting to “The End?”
#AmWriting #AmEditing
The other day I was in the book store and I picked up book #2 in a series. From page #1, I was lost. It wasn’t because the action was confusing or even the concept, it was the multitude of characters that boggled my mind. They shared history, they shared jokes, they shared angst. What they didn’t share was who they were and why should I care about them. If I had read the first book, I think I definitely would’ve been excited about the second book – as it was, I didn’t even look for it.
Have you ever entered a room where a bunch of long-time friends are chatting away?You know you’ve been brought into something special, with special people – but you feel awkward and kind of clueless? That’s how I felt when I opened up that book.
So, this leaves me with the question – can you really jump into the middle of a series and slip right into the universe the author has created?
I say…it depends.
Some writers write stories that are loosely connected, and the publisher wants to clump them together in a “series” in order to brand and sell more books. Those I can deal with, because essentially, they are standalone books – until the last few novels when it seems like authors want to reaffirm how each heroine – and hero – in the books are connected through friendship, kinship or friend-enemyism (I made that word up, but you get the gist). The gilded group always seem to be at a ball or a tea and someone is always pregnant (historical romance is my thing) and keeping it a secret, but that magic is slightly tarnished if the author is trying to bring new readers into into the proverbial fold.
So what is an author supposed to do? I dunno.
Maybe it’s more of a reader thing. I know sometimes in reviews it states very clearly “make sure you read the previous book first” or “no need to read the first book, jump right in!” Could it be reviews are sometimes more helpful than we think? Seems like it!
#AmReading
I was reading Southwest: The Magazine on a flight from Houston to Los Angeles recently when I came across an article by author Margaret Cezair-Thompson. In Secrets of the Earth, Cezair-Thompson shared how she had returned to her childhood home of Jamaica to refresh her memory for a new book she was writing. Squeezed between two rather large men (I thought big guys didn’t fly Southwest?!?!) and wearing pants that got progressively tighter the longer I was in the air, I slipped away from my little space on the Boeing and into this authors’ life . Her experiences were fascinating, but a few simple truths shone through as I read the article: writers write what they know and readers – at least in fiction – read about what they want to know.
As an unpublished writer who struggles with getting though a scene, a page, a paragraph, it was a subtle, but clear reminder as to why authenticity is so important – and the lengths a good writer will go to acquire it. Sometimes when I’m looking at a blank page, I literally have to reset my mind to develop an authentic sentence. One that rings true because it’s based on something I have experienced in my 42 years – an emotion, a scent, a piece of scenery. Authenticity can’t be faked.
Some people might say ‘fiction is all about the make-believe.’ Well, we all know that’s not necessarily true. The fabric of a novel might be an extension of a writer’s imagination, but the characters, the feelings, those are all based on something very solid.
…and that’s what readers appreciate: the believable, make-believe.
Research has shown that there’s a positive connection between audio books and literacy development in children, specifically vocabulary and reading comprehension. In fact, the research went so far as to say “the impact of purely listening to books is striking.”
Striking.
But the question I want to know is: are audio books good for authors?
Audio books may seem like new technology, but realistically, they are simply someone reading you a story out loud, right? And that is a tradition that’s been happening since the first word was uttered. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to audio books, and listen to them a lot. I even have my favorite narrators (VO actors? Whichever they prefer is fine with me) – Carolyn Morris and Eric Michael Summerer, ya’ll are fantastic – but admittedly, I’m listening to audio books while I’m DOING something…usually on my relentless endeavor to lose 10, er 5 pounds, through the rigorous physical exertion of walking really fast; and sometimes I listen while I’m cooking dinner and desperately trying to tune out the kids telling me they’re hungry. So, I am a lover of the audio book – as a listener.
Now over-and-beyond the benefits of the storytelling aspect of an audio book, are they good for the writer in me? I’m not so sure.
Reading the written word provides a number of benefits that are not as easily achievable as listening to it – such as absorbing the different writing styles of various authors, the critical thinking development that’s necessary to enrich your own craft of writing and the visual reminder of the organization or the pattern of writing. And my favorites: grammar and spelling. So if you’re listening to an audio book, you don’t get those fundamental technical reaffirmations necessary to be a good writer.
Two other components that I think also get lost while listening to a book are focus and concentration. If I’m lounging on a tropical beach with a Tequila Sunrise, I’m not listening to an audio book! No I’m reading that book because I have the time and am able to concentrate on one simple task. It’s the same at night in the bed: I’m reading – not listening (but really, I’m probably sleeping). As I mentioned before, I use audio books when I have to multi-task, but actual books (or e-books) are an endeavor that I undertake when I can delve deep.
In “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Stephen King said: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” If he’s strictly talking about physical books, which I think he is, then I could be in trouble!
What about you? What do you think?
#WriteOn
When I was younger, I had the privileged of being able to read anywhere for any length of time – in the kitchen, in the living room, lounging on my bed…for hours and hours and hours (only child, right here). Now that I’m a married old lady with kids, if I’m caught with a book in my hand – or more commonly, with a tablet – I’m looked upon with suspicion. Why isn’t she making us a lunch that we’re too picky to eat, those little faces wonder. Why isn’t she watching super-excited animated characters with me? And then the inevitable guilt does actually settle in and I wait until the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep to relish and binge, only to have to wake up at the break of dawn to do it all over again.
So viola! I’ve created my own mental reading nook and no matter what big dark eyes peer at me over the illuminated face of my handheld device, I’ll be content on that lovely electric blue couch.
#AmReading
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