Read a Book (or a Bunch of Them) Part 1

2018 Goal Update
Books read: 40
Words on WIP: 8,500

I'm deep in the drafting cave right now. Since I (finally) settled on a project that I'm excited about pursuing, I've been doing my best to get a first draft on the page.

The thing with first drafts is that they pretty much always make me feel like I don't know anything about writing. So, I'm not going to be posting about writing for the next few weeks.

Instead, I'm going to talk about books I've read.

Since I'm a person that reads a lot, I get asked for book recommendations pretty regularly.

Rather than just listing books I like, I want to tie my recommendations to specific tropes, archetypes, and trends that I like. I read a pretty wide variety of books, but there are some specific things that pretty much always catch my attention in books. For these lists, I'll tell you a little about some of my favorite elements and recommend a book or two that showcase that element.

We Are the Monsters

I read a lot of genre fiction that pits humans against supernatural creatures or beings from outer space. A pretty frequent theme in these stories is humanity banding together to defeat a common enemy. But what's more interesting are the stories that make me question what it means to be human--ones that point out that human and monster aren't mutually exclusive categories.

My Recommendations

I've talked about this duology before, but it's one of my favorites. In the Monsters of Verity series, violent acts create actual monsters--the worse the violence, the smarter and more dangerous the monster. The city of Verity is divided. A human, Harker, offers protection from the monsters in exchange for a hefty fee. On the other side of the wall, Flynn pushes for stopping the problem of monsters before it starts--and using the most dangerous type of monster, soul-stealing Sunai.Harker's daughter, Kate, wants to prove that she's worthy of her father's monstrous reputation. Flynn's Sunai son, August, just wants to be a normal boy. These books were based on one idea: Plenty of humans are monstrous, and plenty of monsters know how to play at being human.

Grief and Grieving

Loss is always difficult to cope with, and reading has been one of the tools I've used to work out my own feelings. Art--movies, plays, books--give us an chance to vicariously experience the emotions of grief. They help us find catharsis. They give us some tools to deal with these difficulties in our own lives without us having to go through a trauma of our own.

My Recommendations

For this category, I have a genre recommendation and a contemporary recommendation.

THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER follows a girl named Leigh who is navigating the aftermath of her mother's death by suicide. Leigh is convinced that, after her mother died, she turned into a bird. To find out what her mother's spirit is trying to tell her, she takes a trip to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents and connect with the parts of her mother she never knew. This book is devastating--and I mean that in the best possible way. Leigh's journey is as much about figuring out how to manage the way her life has changed as it is about developing an understanding of her mother's struggle. Plus, the prose is beautiful.

UNDEAD GIRL GANG is one of my favorite reads from this year. Mila's best friend was found dead in the park in what the authorities think was part of a suicide pack with two of their school's queen bees. Unsatisfied with the official explanation, Mila casts a spell to bring back the dead, hoping that her best friend will be able to tell her what happened. Unfortunately, she also brings back the other two girls and is no responsible for managing three undead girls for a week while they work out who killed them. This book isn't the gut-wrencher that ASTONISHING COLOR is, but it does dig into the power of grief. Though Mila gets her friend back temporarily, she does have to figure out how to live in a world where her best friend is there. It's got some great action, wonderful friendship, and magic.

That's it for part one! I'll be back with another round of recommendations. If there are specific tropes, trends, or archetypes you'd like to see recommendations for, let me know.

 
 

Contests and a Giveaway

2018 Goal Update
Chapters left to revise: NONE! The MS is now with test readers.
Books read: 16
Words on LIBRARIUM: 1800
Words on WD Contest story: 200

I've managed to complete one of my goals for the year. It's been about a five month process, but this round of revisions for my manuscript is complete. As I told the two readers who are looking over the book for me now, I hate it again, so it's time to put it in someone else's hands.

With that big goal complete, it's time to work on other things. I'm hesitant to devote too much time to my Librarium story before the first round of feedback from the writing group, and I don't want to dive into BRUSHSTROKES until the semester ends and I can give it full focus. So, I thought I'd take a swing at one of my other goals--enter a writing contest.


To say that I've never entered a writing contest wouldn't be entirely accurate. My school district ran a yearly arts competition with a creative writing category. I placed a couple of times in elementary school. I entered a poetry contest at my junior high when I was in ninth grade. That one I won. There's a plaque in the school with my name on it and everything.

But that's really it as far as competition goes.

I don't really have a good explanation for what's stopped me from entering contests. I mean, imposter syndrome is the easy answer: deep down, I don't think I'm a real writer or a talented one, so I don't enter contests because losing one would give weight to those insecurities. But honestly, the same thing could be said about submitting work for publication--rejections aren't exactly great for self-esteem, either. I pitch to publishers and query agents pretty regularly (and get a fair share of rejections).

Maybe it's the winning thing that gets me? With pitches and queries, I'm not really being assessed in comparison. The agent or publisher looks at the work and decides if they want it pretty much independent of what other writers are doing. A contest, though, has a ranking system. There's a comparison.

I subscribe to the belief that comparison is the enemy of progress--I try not to compare myself to anyone other than the writer I was yesterday. It helps me keep my momentum. If I compare my work to the stuff I find on the shelves, my sense of my ability may be skewed one way or another, but I can pretty easily compare my older work and my current work and get a sense of how I've improved. A contest, though, is about that comparison. Was your story better than the others?

And I get that it's subjective. That good and great stories still lose. But my ego is fragile. I already feel like I'm faking my way through this whole writing thing. The last thing I need is something to topple my already precarious balance.

Ultimately, though, I can't get better if I don't take risks, if I'm not willing to put myself out there. So, this week, I started work on a piece for a contest. I don't know what will come of it, but I think the chance will be worthwhile.

In celebration of this risk (and of the Amazon Author Central page I finally got around to setting up), I'm giving away two copies of one of my favorite reads from 2017, This Savage Song.

To enter, click this link and follow me on Amazon. Winners will be chosen on March 26. While you're there, check out my list of available works.

Favorite Reads from 2017

There are still a few weeks left in it, but I can safely say that 2017 has been a hell of a year. One positive thing that's come out of what's otherwise been pretty much a dumpster fire of a year is that I spent more time reading.

I've loved reading since I learned how, but it's been tough to make it a priority in recent years, between college, graduate school, work, and my own writing. But I've found that if I consider it part of my writing work--you can't write well unless you read, and you can't know the business of publishing unless you keep up with it--I put more effort toward it.

I set a conservative reading goal this year: 30 books from January 1 to December 31. I'm sitting at about 47 right now, and I'll likely make it to 50 before the year's out. That's still about half of where I'd like to be, but it's a start.

Around this time last year, I posted a list of my five favorite reads from 2016. I wanted to do the same this year, especially since I'd read so much more. This is that list.

I don't have very many rules for inclusion, but I do want to give some insight into how I built this particular list.

Books on this list don't have to have been published in 2017 (though many of the books I read this year were--following literary agents on Twitter definitely helps me keep up with new releases); I just have to have read them in 2017. I limit my list to one book per author, which came in handy this year, since I discovered a new favorite author and read a couple whole series this year. This list is for single books and not series, so, for series that I want to have represented, I pick one to represent the entire series.

I don't have a quota for what I read, but I do try to read across age groups and genres. I also make an effort to read underrepresented voices. This doesn't mean that I avoid books by white guys, but I try to make sure that they don't make up all of my reading list. This year, I came pretty close to gender parity. My specific goal for this year was to read more books by women of color, and I think I did that pretty well.

So, all that in mind, here's my list of favorite reads from 2017, in no particular order. And, as always, buy links are provided.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

 This is maybe an obvious choice, but there was no way this book wasn't going to be on my list. Angie Thomas's debut novel spent the better part of this year sitting at the top of the NYT Best Seller list. The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter a teenage girl who has to navigate the world of the mostly-white private school she attends and the mostly black urban neighborhood she where she lives. Her worlds collide when her childhood friend, Kahlil is the victim of a police shooting. Thomas creates characters that the reader becomes immediately attached to, and she gives a face and a point of connection to a larger social problem. Apart from being an emotional and entertaining read,  The Hate U Give provides an opportunity to build empathy. I started putting this book in other people's hands as soon as I finished reading it. I can't recommend this book enough.

The Last Colony by John Scalzi

The Last Colony is actually the third book in John Scalzi's Old Man's War series, all of which (except for the sixth and final book which I haven't been able to get my hands on) I read this year. Humans have built colonies in space, but they're not the only species vying for territory. Where the first two installments of this series are more concerned with battles in space, The Last Colony focuses on the struggle of keeping a colony afloat amid galactic conflict and under the thumb of a manipulative governing body. I recommend the entire series (or, you know, the five I've read), but this was my favorite of them.

 Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

I'm way behind the curve on this one. Bad Feminist came out in 2014, and Gay has published several books and stories since this one. I also read a collection of her short stories this year (Difficult Women), but this essay collection hit me hard. Gay writes about feminism from an intersectional perspective, discussing the ways that class, race, appearance, and sexuality all complicate the experience of womanhood and feminism. She writes about mass media and issues of representation, about the treacherous world women have to navigate, and about the internal struggles of feminist movements. Gay's style is forthright and personal, and she doesn't flinch away from difficult topics. Definitely a worthwhile read.

Want by Cindy Pon

This was another of the new releases I picked up this year after hearing about it from lit agents. Want is set in a near-future Taipei, where air pollution has hit levels that make it dangerous to go outside without a special climate controlled suit. But those suits aren't free, so the rich buy them up while the poor suffer and die from illnesses related to the pollution levels. Jason Zhou and his friends have a plan to change the status quo, but it involves Zhou going undercover as one of the wealthy elites he despises. Want hits a lot of my buttons: a hero that's willing to take questionable actions to achieve their goals (but who's also not immune to the emotional consequences of those actions); shady corporate actions; the relationship between quality and length of life and access to resources (can't get away from the sociology, I guess). Want is powerful and atmospheric, with elements of scifi and some pretty neat heists.

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

So, in a discussion with an agent at a conference, I mentioned that I wanted to write across age groups, to which the agent said, "Like Victoria Schwab?"

I said, "Yes, exactly!" And then decided that I should, you know, maybe read some of her stuff.

As of right now, I've read eight and a half (I'm not quite through The Near Witch) of her works since October, and I've loved each one. But her Monsters of Verity duology were my favorites. This Savage Song is the first in that duology. The story follows Kate Harker and August Flynn, a human and a monster who are on opposite sides of conflict in the city of Verity. Kate's the daughter of a crime boss who uses his influence to protect anyone who can pay from the monsters that roam the city. August is a powerful monster who's been raised by the man trying to make the city safe for everyone. Schwab's prose is beautiful, and this pair of books checks so many of my favorite-thing boxes. This Savage Song is the only book that I read twice this year. I loved this series so much; I think I'm gonna get a t-shirt made that just says "Talk to me about Monsters of Verity."

And that's my 2017 list. It's more YA-heavy than last years, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

What were some of your favorite reads this year? Let me know in the comments.