Next First Line Leaves Me Looking Forward . . .

This next first line leaves me looking forward to my next next first line. It's just not compelling, but as a period novel, I suppose it's apropos.


Stepping into the back alleyway, Lianna took a deep invigorating breath and closed her eyes. How she loved these warm moonlit nights stirred by the cool sea breeze. Even behind the Black Dog Tavern, in this dank corner of the wretched port with its nauseous smells and filthy streets, she couldn't help but feel a sense of serenity.

Bray-Weber, Jennifer - Blood and Treasure

I wish that the author had come up with a less trite name than the Black Dog Tavern. That smacks of caricature.

Depressing First Line

Despite what turned out to be a terrific book, I thought the first line was wanting.


The Raccoon River runs through a 631-acre park in the city of West Des Moines, Iowa. During the Great Flood of 1993, the river flooded the water treatment facility of Des Moines, shutting off the city’s supply of drinking water. This time, it only flooded the south end of the park, in sum, almost 200 acres: a far cry from the damage it had incurred nearly two decades before.

Conner, Aimee -. Scrapbook


It's like sitting down to listen to a symphony orchestra and when they play that first note, one or two folks miss they beat and come in at just the wrong time. Thankfully most musicians are good enough to catch back up. Miss Conner caught up as well (here).

Review for a First Timer

I read a first-time novelists first novel and boy do I feel intimidated and under-prepared for my own writing life. I found Scrapbook (here) through the author at a site for authors called Book Blogs (here). It's a decent site with an overwhelming number of YA authors on it. Scrapbook is definitely not YA.

Couldn't put it down. This is my four word review. What did I like most? Edge of your seat writing, short, pithy, engaging. Both the tight writing and quick chapters made it impossible to stop. It's like a roller coaster ride where the train pulls into the station and instead of getting off you ask the attendant if you can keep going around for the next chapter.

It was reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs. I remember when I first read that book and I was stunned by how gritty and visceral it was, Scrapbook was much the same. Having never read any of Miss Conner's works before I found her writing to have terrific pacing, fun characters, gruesome and real description that came at just the right time, with squeamishness in small doses that wasn't so over the top that I wanted to give up on it. It's well worth the time and money and I'll be recommending it to all of my reading friends.

I look forward to Miss Conner's next works.

Everywhere I Look I See Creative Writing

I ran across this link today (here) which lists the ten most painful insect stings as listed by Robert T. Gonzalez in  iO9. Ho-hum you are thinking, I didn't come to a great blog like Publish or Perish to talk about pabulum like insect stings. Except, what I like about it are the descriptions that the author presents of what the sting feels like. He pokes fun at the way wine tasters write and give some clarifications. My favorite is the description of the Paper Wasp sting.

Animal: Paper wasp
Schmidt Index: 3.0
Description: Caustic and burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.


Very clever. Made me take a second look and I feel confident anyone savvy enough to visit this blog will be have their curiosity piqued enough to click the link. 

A Bananas Foster Astray Sandwich

So, in an effort to promote my work and to hopefully find new reviewers I joined a group called Book Blogs. Today I posted my banner ad for Toe the Line and a short "elevator pitch" in their Promote Your Book forum (here).

I am now sandwiched between two works. One is Banana's Foster by Sandra Murphy. I haven't read anything about the book yet, but the title alone makes me want to know more.

The other book is by someone who seems to be quite prolific (at least on the Book Blogs site) whose name is Carlos King. He listed two of his books beneath mine, Prey and Astray. Those I doubt I will read unless they come with a strong recommendation. Still, fun to try and put some stuff out there and see what sticks.

Catching Fire

I finished the second in Suzanne Collins' series. I liked the first one. I read it in about three days. I liked this one as well. They are lively and quick and fun to read. It was as good as the first. Not the most literary novel, but fun to read and spirited. A good escape for a short time. 

One thing I noticed in this novel that I didn't notice in the first one is that Collins moves things along quite clunkily. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don't particularly care for her endings, but now I'm finding her zips through time, where she writes a catch all phrase like "Gale and I practiced a lot over the next few months" a tad off putting. I'm the type of Joe who wants to know what that practicing was like. I suspect an editor told Miss Collins that the reader would be bored and she had to get to the games. Not this reader sister!

One last thing about this book. I love my Kindle because I can make notes and marks so easily. I see a fancy, five dollar, vocabulary word, I mark it. I notice a striking analogy, I highlight it. I like going back after the fact and selecting "See My Notes and Marks" and remembering these details after the fact. I clicked that feature for Catching Fire . . . nothing. No notes. No marks. Nuff said.

Fun fun fun! But that's about it.

Most of Writing is Re-Writing

Recently I exchanged emails with an author (truly, someone making a living with the written fiction word . . . living the dream I say!) and they agreed that most of writing is re-writing. It's stunning how much re-writing goes into a novel. I'm withholding reading from myself until I finish the second round of edits on my second novel On the Edge. I'm hoping I'm just a week from being done.

Nevertheless, the only thing I am allowing myself to read is books on the craft of writing and even then I only read it when "all electronics must be turned off" for take offs or landings.

To that end I'm trying to keep these things in mind (here). These are tips on why why my story might stink. Worth a look see if you are a writer. My favorite? Poo-poo Plot.

First the Beginning, . . . Now the End

Since my last post was on Catching Fire's first line, and I got such a phenomenal response . . . why not do it again?


“She’s alive. So is your mother. I got them out in time,” he says. 
“They’re not in District Twelve?” I ask. 
“After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs.” He hesitates. “Well, you know what happened to the Hob.”
 I do know. I saw it go up. That old warehouse embedded with coal dust. The whole district’s covered with the stuff. A new kind of horror begins to rise up inside me as I imagine firebombs hitting the Seam. 
“They’re not in District Twelve?” I repeat. As if saying it will somehow fend off the truth.
“Katniss,” Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It’s the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. 
I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly. 
“Don’t,” I whisper. 
But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. 
“Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

Collins, Suzanne - Catching Fire

As I said, Collins is all about the "drop ending." Leaving the story off in what seems like mid-sentence in the hope that the reader will try the next in the series. This is no different. A tad better than the end of The Hunger Games, but still, leaves me hanging.

First Line: Catching Fire

I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air. My muscles are clenched tight against the cold. If a pack of wild dogs were to appear at this moment, the odds of scaling a tree before they attacked are not in my favor. I should get up, move around, and work the stiffness from my limbs. But instead I sit, as motionless as the rock beneath me, while the dawn begins to lighten the woods. I can’t fight the sun. I can only watch helplessly as it drags me into a day that I’ve been dreading for months.


Collins, Suzanne -Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

Heh.

Even as I read it, expecting alot since Miss Collins has the tendency to let novels end abruptly, naturally I was expecting a quick, punchy beginning, I thought, "that's not that great a first line or passage.

Thankfully, the rest of the book was more engrossing than the first line, but more on that later.

Always Amazed

Whenever I open my email and see the WSJ.com Editors I know that some silly question has been asked of Cynthia Crossen (see here, here and here). Despite my always being disappointed by the question I always read the article and I always come away glad that I did.

This time the question is about what books the writer's daughter should read at camp (here). I've read a few books about the wilderness, but only one of mine made the list. I will say though that my "to be read" list is now much longer thanks to this article. Among the new books on the list:

Another remarkable story of a nervy woman on a long camping trip is Robyn Davidson's "Tracks," a memoir of the author's hike across 1,700 miles of Australian desert with her dog and four camels. 


I also admired and enjoyed Cheryl Strayed's recent backpacking memoir, "Wild," for her hard-earned epiphanies about which sporting goods people actually need to survive a 1,100-mile solo hike. In some ways, "Wild" reminded me of Bill Bryson's very funny "A Walk in the Woods," but Ms. Strayed's account of her journey is rawer and riskier.

And although Deliverance was the only camping/wilderness story that I knew before this article, it only made Crossen's list because of the horror aspect. (BTW, if you haven't read it, do so, it's lyrical).


There's no better setting for ghost stories than camp, and here Dad could throw in a classic: Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw." Edith Wharton has a collection of ghost stories, and Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black" offers a macabre chill. So does James Dickey's 1970 novel "Deliverance," but that's probably going too far on the wilderness-as-setting-for-horror spectrum. The campfire story that scared me sleepless was "The Hookman," which is folklore.


Once again, glad I read it.