Letting Go

I think, over time, I have made the (not so difficult) decision to let my unfinished novel go. I won’t delete it, but I’m not making it past what I’ve written so far.  The inability to finish this work is eating away at my confidence as a writer. It’s making me second guess my talent and wonder if I am, indeed a writer. Maybe I am a writer but not a novelist? A writer but not an author?

At any rate, I am tired of thinking about how I have to dig that thing out and keep pounding away on it. I am ready to think about something new. Whatever that something is.

Monday Warmup: “I am not…”

pencilI am not patient. At all.
I am not cruel. Well, hardly ever.
I am not thin, nor am I what I would consider stylish.
I am not obsessive. (Very)
I am not overly serious.
I am not deeply religious.
I am not into games or meaningless rituals
I am not disingenuous. If I call you friend, you are friend.
I am not wishy washy, nor do I waffle. Black or white, hot or cold, in or out.
I am not perfect. I am flawed and will remain so for……..forever.
I am not strong. I just do what I have to do, like any other person.
I am not stoic. I get hurt just like anyone else. Like everyone else.
I am not mean nor unforgiving nor hateful.
I am not a quitter. I refuse to quit.
I am not done telling stories.

I refuse to be done telling stories.

Getting Back to Writing?

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This isn’t an instructional post. It’s a question. It’s a question that I’ve been asking myself for months now. It’s a question that I don’t have an answer to.

I currently have a novel that is wasting away in a corner of my laptop. I have an unfinished fanfiction story that I’ve been trying to apply CPR to, but my breaths of life don’t seem to be doing the trick. Even my book reviews are blah to me. I read and read, and re-read thigns I wrote that I enjoy. And yet I still stare at a blank page and have no thoughts or ideas, no story sparks, no bits of dialog that used to chase me down the street until I put them in a story. I finished my fanfics and then……….. nothing.

And at first I thought it was normal. I spent years pouring my heart and soul into those works. I needed a break. My break hast been most of last year and so far all of this year. Did my Muse pack up and go away? Have I just… lost my writing mojo?

I haven’t lost my desire to write, not at all. I really sit down to write and……………..my mind goes blank. And what I do come up with absolutely blows. So frustrating. I used to be so talented……..does that go away if you don’t use it?

I guess I am posting this because I am asking (anyone who is still reading this blog)… what the hell happens when you want to write and nothing comes? I have never been that person that had a hundred ideas flowing and could write a short story about anything. I’ve always had a dearth of ideas because I always want to tell a new story.

Maybe there really are no new stories.

I know the answer is…..just do it. And I’d love to…….if I had any ideas.

Review: The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave

The Laughterhouse: A ThrillerThe Laughterhouse: A Thriller by Paul Cleave

Summary: Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene—ten-year-old Jessica found dead in “the Laughterhouse,” an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the S painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it?

Fifteen years later, a new killer arrives in Christchurch, and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica’s murder case, one of whom is the unfortunate Dr. Stanton, a man with three young girls. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the Laughterhouse, and the city’s suddenly growing murder rate. And he needs to figure it out fast, because Stanton and his daughters have been kidnapped, and the doctor is being forced to make an impossible decision: which one of his daughters is to die first.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: Yeah, you saw that right. I must be getting soft in my old age… I used to never give 5 stars, but as I tell my friends, a 4 is really good… a 5 is near or surpassed perfection for me. I am by no means well read or versed in fiction. I just know what I love and I know I can be picky, so if I give it 5 stars and you and I like the same kind of material……GET ON THAT.

So, right. I am supposed to put words here to describe my feelings about this novel and it’s author. I find myself without sufficient words, which I know is a cop out but REALLY. First, as I’ve stated before, I love recurring characters and continuing story lines. I like getting to know a character over the course of a few books and not in 250-400 pages. Theodore Tate is a likable protagonist, one I like reading about.

I find Cleave’s representation of Cole is so complex. He wants to made out as a monster, but he’s not a sick freak. He’s killed 4 people and kidnapped a doctor and his three daughters, but he’s angry that the press wonders if he’s molested the three little girls he’s kidnapped. I alternately empathize with and detest Caleb Cole. In my heart of hearts I feel his pain, but I also feel frustration that he doesn’t listen to reason. He’s made up his mind. The most dangerous folks are those that have nothing to lose.

I am a big fan of buildup, and there’s plenty of it in The Laughterhouse. I could guess at Cole’s motivation, but I prefer a slow burn and unraveling of the story. The novel takes place over two harrowing, frustrating nights, keeping ChristChurch in a powerful, murderous grip and the police force running from crime scene to crime scene, trying to solve the mystery before more people die.

I also like the return to the storyline about Tate’s wife and the surprising events surrounding her illness.

I finished this book around 3am today and I’m STILL pouting about the cliff-hanger ending!!! I have a few other Cleave books to finish (I unintentionally read them in the wrong order, oh well) so there’s just enough time to release a new book and continue the story.

Ahem, Mr Cleave!

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Review:Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave

Collecting CooperCollecting Cooper by Paul Cleave

Summary: People are disappearing in Christchurch. Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn’t make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn’t make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate is released from a four-month prison stint, he’s asked by Green’s father to help find Emma. After all, Tate was in jail for nearly killing her in a DUI accident the year before, so he owes him. Big time. What neither of them knows is that a former mental patient is holding people prisoner as part of his growing collection of serial killer souvenirs. Now he has acquired the ultimate collector’s item—an actual killer.

Meanwhile, clues keep pulling Tate back to Grover Hills, the mental institution that closed down three years ago. Very bad things happened there. Those who managed to survive would prefer keeping their memories buried. Tate has no choice but to unearth Grover Hills’ dark past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: I so rarely give books five stars, but it was SO RIDONKULOUSLY GOOD.

Now if I may attempt to return to some kind of form and explain what I loved about this book. I won’t bore anyone with rehash. Read the summary if you want to know what the book is about.

How about characters? Cleave has a way of letting you in on each character’s past that is not unlike peeling an onion. Layer by layer, he reveals the inner workings until you’re deeper inside than you realize. In a few chapters, we feel like we know Tate, Adrian, Emma, even Cooper. We’re supposed to kind of hate Tate, the way Schroeder does, but also respect him for his knack for solving cases. Adrian is a pitiable character, one I could feel sorry for… is he just confused and maybe not really very bright? Or just evil? You know how Buttons says, there’s a difference between crazy and mean? I don’t know which one Adrian is. Maybe a little of both. Even the invisible character of Melissa X from The Cleaner is exposed and we learn more about who she is and why she kills men in uniform. This is a story line that I hope Cleave continues. Cooper was a surprising character that I first liked and felt sorry for, then felt cheated, disappointed and angry once the innocent persona of the professor was peeled back and we saw him for what he truly is. A rare moment of surprise for me.

How about twists? This book is a winding mountain road. So much evil, so little time to write about it, and how each story line is intricately weaved into another (even one from a previous book, which… YAY!)is literary genius to me. I like to guess at what the outcome will be, and be happily surprised when I am wrong.

How about pacing? Pretty sure I almost had a heart attack. Collecting Cooper is written from two POV’s. This story could not have been told the right way had we not been able to read both Tate and Cooper’s thoughts. The book covers just a few days, however there is near nonstop action, through which we alternately follow Adrian trying to build or complete his ‘collection’ and Tate trying to find Emma Green, Cooper Riley and by default, Adrian.

I often wonder what happens in the mind of a writer of grisly tales of evil, abuse, hate, mental illness, cavalier responses to torture and murder. I admit now that I don’t really want to know. I just want Paul Cleave to keep it coming.

Loved loved loved this book, in case that wasn’t obvious.

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Review: The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell

The Death of BeesThe Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell

Summary: Marnie and her little sister Nelly are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren’t telling. While life in Glasgow’s Hazlehurst housing estate isn’t grand, they do have each other. Besides, it’s only one year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both.

As the new year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? But he’s not the only one who suspects something isn’t right. Soon, the sisters’ friends, their other neighbors, the authorities, and even Gene’s nosy drug dealer begin to ask questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls’ family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Review: “Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved.”

Gene and Izzy are dead. And no one must know.

The Death of Bees begins with a prologue that doesn’t drop hints, hoping you’ll get the point. It comes right out with the truth. Lisa O Donnell spends each chapter thereafter weaving a tale of two young girls left alone to fend for themselves, saved by the friendly old man next door, a sneaky ice cream van driver, and a surprisingly upstanding drug dealer.

This was an enjoyable Sunday afternoon read, written in the rambling tone of two teenage girls- one too much of an adult for her own good, one in desperate need of raising and parenting, something she’d never had, even when her parents were around.

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Reviews: Requiem by Lauren Oliver; The Cleaner by Paul Cleave

Requiem (Delirium, #3)Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Summary: Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.
After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review:  This is the 3rd and final in the Delirium series, a book I have waited for a number of months to read. Some of my deep seated wants were granted (I won’t spoil them for you). A couple of loose ends remain, but I guess that would have made it too pat. I’m avoiding including much of the summary and digging too deep into my review because I know a lot of people haven’t read it. Suffice it to say, it is a satisfying end of series novel. Lauren did a superb job keeping the story going without it getting tiresome and repetitive and the addition of characters to keep the story going was at perfect pace. I can’t say that I was as into the love triangle as some of the younger, YA fans were, but the pull between the three involved is well written.

Now I’m curious about a character that reappears…I hadn’t planned to read the Novellas, but I just might.

Great ending to a great series.

 

 

The Cleaner: A ThrillerThe Cleaner: A Thriller by Paul Cleave

Summary: Joe is in control of everything in his simple life—both his day job as a janitor for the police department and his “night work.” He isn’t bothered by the daily news reports of the Christchurch Carver, who, they say, has murdered seven women. Joe knows, though, that the Carver killed only six. He knows that for a fact, and he’s determined to find the copycat. He’ll punish him for the one, then frame him for the other six. It’s the perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police. All he needs now is to take care of all the women who keep getting in his way, including his odd, overprotective mother and Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother. Then there’s the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture don’t have a place in Joe’s investigation.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: It’s no surprise that this book was in the running for Best Fiction in Cleave’s native New Zealand. The Cleaner is unpredictable at every turn. Suspenseful and yet simple, it’s a rapid, action packed, twisty read.  Fantastic. And as is my usual habit when I find a great author, I now have to read everything he’s written!

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[Review] The House Girl by Tara Conklin

The House GirlThe House Girl by Tara Conklin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*This review may contain spoilers*

Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.
It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?
Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.

An excellent first publish from a new author that I would read again. I would be interested in seeing growth in the vehicle to push the story forward.

I was entirely more interested in Josephine’s story, though there were parts of Lina’s story that I connected with as well. I’m not sure that I have a stance on reparations but I felt its role in this story was rather weak and the coincidental demise of that issue to be to convenient.  I wanted the vehicle for needing to locate Josephine to be stronger… however she made do with what she had and I was impressed with the depth of the story from a first time novelist. I’d red another book by her, most certainly.

More than anything, it showed me, visibly, that our ancestors live within us, among us. Josephine lived a short 17 years, but hundreds of years later, her legacy was still alive. Impressive, powerful storytelling.

I felt connected to Lina, Oscar, Josephine, even LuAnne Bell. I couldn’t dig Dan or Garrison or Dresser in the least and rolled my eyes at every mention of a Reparations lawsuit. Despite what I felt was a weak vehicle, this story is full of drama, hidden secrets, twists and turns from the past. The beginning moves slowly, but as we dig deeper into both Lina and Josephine, the novel weaves a thick, tightly woven tapestry of amazing story that I’ve been craving since the Kitchen House.

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#FridayReads: I Wish I Had a Red Dress by Pearl Cleage

I’ve had this book for awhile. Finally tossed it into the Currently Reading stack and cracked it open. Happy to continue the story of Idlewilde!

This weekend will be full of reading (among other things) since I’ve decided to get back on the Goodreads Challenge horse. My goal will take some effort to achieve but isn’t insurmountable. I’ll have plenty of time during the holiday break to get some reading in. Maybe I should pick up some novellas. Those totally count for me! ;)

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

 

Review: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of HattieThe Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

I was excited to read this book because I love historical fiction and the story line sounded compelling– the story of a mother’s love and how her children were changed by that love, whether they could feel it or not.

My first impression of author Ayana Mathis is that she is skilled in the art of showing-not-telling. Her words paint a picture of her world so vivid that I feel like I walk the streets with one and sit in the park with the other and perch on the side of the bed of yet another. I loved the idea of intertwining vignettes of each of her children. Part of the reason I avoid anthologies is because I’m a novel reader at heart. I need each chapter to have something to do with the one before it. This was done perfectly.

The chapters themselves… well I found some of her children wildly intriguing: Six, Bell, Alice… I couldn’t read fast enough. Sala and Cassie’s stories were heartbreaking and riveting. Some chapters I just couldn’t grasp enough of an understanding and I moved on feeling confused and unfulfilled.

I was especially interested in the personal relationships– how Hattie was different with Lawrence than she was with her husband and even her sisters; how she was so cold and regimented toward her family but seemed so warm and loving toward others. I loved the description of her demeanor toward the end, how she seemed to have softened up and how she was there to rescue Bell, who’d given up on their relationship.

In all, I felt the book was ‘okay’. Not something I’d read over and over but not wholly awful. I would read another book by Ms. Mathis.

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Review: The Racketeer, John Grisham

The RacketeerThe Racketeer by John Grisham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered
Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.
Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland.
On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.
What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price—especially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett’s death. And the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday . .
Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller. -from Goodreads.com

This book is why I love John Grisham. He makes a book hard to put down, with fast paced action peppered with high-level, believable detail. This book reminds me so much of the old Grisham. Make no mistake, I’m a diehard Grisham fan however he’s had a few shaky releases in the past few years (I know, I say that every time he releases a new book). I feel like this is a novel that I will read over and over, just like The Client, The Firm, The Associate, The Broker, etc. etc.

I like when I have a feeling about how the story will end and then I discover that I’m completely wrong. By the time I figure out what really happened, I’ve reached the end and I realize that the author has somehow managed to tell an entire story without being predictable and showing his hand too early. I’ve read far too many books in which the main conflict is solved too early and there are 100 pages of aimless blathering about nothing until the end of the book (i.e. The Girl with the Dragon tattoo). No such thing with The Racketeer.

Finally, I loved his Author’s note at the end of the story. He basically said he didn’t do any research, he made up a bunch of stuff and he wrote a great story. This is why I love Grisham.

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