Category: On Reading

Back to reading

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It’s been a few years since I stopped adding books to my GoodReads list or creating a reading goal there. The main reason I’d backed away was because I’d just been too distracted by my writing projects, specifically the part of my revision process wherein I reread (and reread and reread) what I have. While that works really well for me, it started creeping into my general reading habits to the point where I just…stopped reading new things for a while. I returned to a lot of comfort reading and stayed there.

I’ve been thinking of starting it up again this year, however, now that I have the time and the inclination — not to mention that the major events of 2025 (mainly our moving house) are finally in the past tense. I’m itching to read new things again and digging through my bedside TBR pile with gusto. It’s not just to get through these books, but because I’m ready to find some new inspiration and influence for my future writing projects! I’ve got to feed the beast every now and again, and it’s been too long to be honest.

As always I tend to be a bit choosy. I haven’t been into dark fantasy in ages, and I’ve never been a fan of dystopia or grimdark. On the other hand, I find myself enjoying magical realism and modern fantasy based on cultural mythos, and I of course do love the occasional hopepunk story. It doesn’t always have to be light reading, as I also love a good doorstopper that keeps me hooked the entire time. And it’s been awhile since I’ve read a good laugh-out-loud romcom. I’m up for almost anything lately.

I’m curious to see what new titles will show up in the new year!

It’s been a strange few weeks…

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Rintaro from The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity

…most of which I won’t go into as it’s something that should stay personal, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s doing its best to derail me from my nightly writing sessions. The most I can say is that I’m doing my best to keep that from happening. I just need to balance it all out and keep moving forward.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing a lot of manga reading lately, though this time via Hoopla and more often on the K Manga app that’s run by Kodansha. One title in particular that I’ve come to currently obsess over is The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity (aka Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku). It’s a YA story about two teens from opposite social circles (in this case, a boy from a school full of losers and a girl from an elite academy whose buildings are next door to each other) that fall in love against all odds. It’s quite lovely and heartfelt without being schmaltzy or too slight. It’s a high school story where there’s conflict that doesn’t necessarily have to be dialed up to eleven unless it needs it, and I’ve really come to appreciate that kind of Zen-like style of storytelling. I’ve also learned that Netflix released a thirteen-episode season just recently, which I’m yet to watch in its entirety.

It’s well worth checking out, I highly recommend it.

I’ve also been reading a few other titles both on the K Manga app and elsewhere online. There’s the competitive hip-hop dancing manga Wandance featuring a lonely teen boy with a stutter who meets a girl who inspires him to join the dance club at their high school. There’s the hilariously quirky Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, centering on an exhausted salaryman who befriends a snarky checkout girl…who happens to also be the amazingly adorable ringer that makes his heart beat. Then there’s the light and enjoyable Laid Back Camp about a group of high school girls who learn the ins and outs (and the hidden joys) of outdoor camping and all it brings. There’s You Can’t Live All On Your Own! about four young women living together in a shared apartment and dealing with the joys and frustrations of post-school adulthood.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been falling behind on my other reading (current book: The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim, the second Fate’s Thread book after The God and the Gumiho) so once I’m caught up with this manga binge-read, I’ll finally get back to my To Be Read pile.

Though I will say all this manga is inspiring me with some new story ideas…

A little night reading

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I know, I know…I really should be catching up with my To Be Read pile at night. It’s not even that big at the moment. Instead, I’ve been turning on my e-reader and reading a bunch of comics and manga on the Hoopla app. Yay for the SF Public Library for carrying a considerably large collection! And on top of all that, I’m working through all twenty-six volumes of Charles Schulz’s The Complete Peanuts (I’m currently on volume 11, the 1971-72 comics).

I figure what I’m doing here is not actually avoiding the TBR pile, but just allowing myself to purely enjoy reading, which I sometimes forget to do. I think part of this is due to having gone through a phase some years back where I just felt burnt out by reading only genre, or only music bio, or whatever, added to the fact that I was trying to reach a goal I’d set on GoodReads.

During all this pleasure reading, it occurred to me that this was what I did back in the Belfry days. I’d been hooked on comic books at the time and simply had to follow the monthly adventures of whatever titles I’d bought (including slogging through the last third of Dave Sim’s Cerebus, and you really need the fortitude and patience to slog through everything past the Flight trade, and especially after Rick’s Story). A lot of it I enjoyed, and a lot of it helped shape the kind of storytelling I enjoy writing. But I was also pushing myself to read comics and books that I wasn’t entirely enjoying. I bought a lot that I simply never got around to reading.

So I’m not too worried about those few titles gathering dust next to the bed, because I’ll get to them eventually. In the meantime I’m checking out things that capture my interest and are an easy and relaxing read. I’m trying out different genres and styles and soaking in the storytelling and the worldbuilding. Sometimes the comic’s a silly slice of life, sometimes it’s a quirky oddball fantasy, sometimes it’s a romance.

And in the end, I’m hoping some of this light night reading will inspire some new ideas!

Catching up on reading

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For the most part we’ve finally gotten our book collection in one place. It took some time and a frightening amount of purging before the move, but our library is now much more under control, and nearly all within the office.

I’ve got a shortish bookshelf next to the bed that’s holding our romance library and several of my read-then-donate books. As much as it feels weird to get rid of so many books over the course of most of April and May (I counted at least six trips to Goodwill for donation and one to Green Apple for selling), it feels good to have space again.

I’m going to try to be better at the book turnaround, to be honest. I’m fine with thinning out every couple of months or so, but what I should also do is utilize our local library more often! Our neighborhood library is a short bus ride away, and we both use the Hoopla app frequently. So why not save a bit of money and space by going there instead?

Mind you, I’m not quitting buying books cold turkey. Some authors we simply must buy upon release — we just picked up Kate Elliott’s The Witch Roads from Green Apple after preordering it — and some books just aren’t available digitally. Just not going overboard always picking up new titles that I may or may not get around to reading for months on end!

Future inspiration

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A lot of my non-writing things have definitely fallen by the wayside over the years, and I always wish I could return to that. I often complain about that here. And at the end of every year, I make some vague plan to try to do better at it, but never quite follow through. I’ll try for a few days and hit nothing but frustration, and let it go soon after

This year, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that the issue here isn’t quite about being consistent with the whiteboard schedule. I can easily follow that if I put my mind to it; I’ve done it countless times in the past. But sometimes just DO the thing doesn’t quite cut it.

This year I realized that I haven’t been inspired to do it. Think about it: why am I rarely picking up my guitars these days? It’s partly because I’m playing the same damn riffs and bass lines over and over, like I have for the last several years. The last major change I had was when I was doing the Blogging the Beatles and as a side project I taught myself some of their songs, and in the process I learned a few new tricks. But since then I’ll pick it up, play those same songs yet again, then put it down soon after. I’m not trying to be a semi-professional at it like I am with my writing, of course. I just want to expand my repertoire.

The same could be said with my artwork. I do miss doing that a lot, but again: the inspiration is eluding me. It’s been ages since I’ve broken out my pens, pencils and art notebooks, and I think it’s mainly for the same reasons: I keep drawing the same damn things and not trying anything new. Hell, I even miss drawing my maps, but I always end up drawing the same setting over and over!

And let’s be honest, the same could actually be said with my writing as well: I haven’t allowed myself to be inspired to try new fiction projects in a while, either. These last few years have been about finishing the active ones. But with this particular avenue I’ve made some inroads: I’ve been forcing myself to expand my reading habits again. And not just reading more, but leaning heavily on novels that have given me that wonderful I would LOVE to write something like this feeling, which can sometimes be a rare event. And in order to do that, I have to actively look for these books and try them out, whether it’s through trying out a chapter at a bookstore, purchasing them, or borrowing them through Hoopla.

But most importantly, I have to remember this about inspiration: it doesn’t always need to be mind-blowing, heart-moving and earth-shattering. Diwa & Kaffi wasn’t just about me writing a hopepunk story, it was also about me training myself to appreciate the smaller, quieter things in life. Same with me grabbing those Zen-a-Day desk calendars. I must remind myself that it doesn’t always have to resonate so incredibly deep. I swear this comes from being a Gen-X film student in the 90s and soaking in every media outlet that embraced Michael Bay levels of epic action and drama. For years my intake was dialed to 11…and it’s taken me years to unravel myself from that habit. This is precisely why one of my favorite movies of 2023 was Wim Wenders’ meditational Perfect Days, because this was the balance I needed to aim for.

So if anything, if I’m to look for future inspiration, I need to remember to look for the quiet as well as the loud. Whatever resonates the most.

Catching up on reading

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Over the last couple of years, I’ve given up partway through GoodReads’ reading challenge. Not because I wasn’t even close to making the goal I’d set for myself, however. I think I just kind of grew out of doing it every year. I know I can do it, but sometimes extenuating circumstances (draft rereading for my novel projects, reading a ridiculously long book, etc.) put me behind. But more to the point, my heart just wasn’t in it. I’d set a goal at the start of the year, but after a while I just decided I didn’t want that to be my primary goal for reading.

Anyway, I have been continuing my end of year habit of catching up on various books. I’ve been powering through some of the books next to my bed. Some of them have been quite enjoyable while others sadly fell into the did-not-finish pile. I do this partly to catch up, but also to weed out some of the books I no longer want. [My rules still hold: 1) If I’ve owned it over a year and never read it, either start it or give it away; 2) If I’ve read it but don’t think I’ll reread it, give it away, and 3) If reading it feels like a chore, give it away.]

I think at the start of the year, instead of participating in the reading challenge, I will just continue updating my GoodReads list (and start using StoryGraph as well, having just signed onto it). That way I won’t be worried about falling behind or feeling like I’m not getting anything done at all, and I can just enjoy the act of immersing myself in my reading. After all, that’s one of the reasons I got into this writing gig, didn’t I?

Reading at night

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I was doing pretty good there for a while. I was going through a number of books on my TBR pile (or alternately catching up on my shopping list by reading library copies on Hoopla), but that seems to have fallen by the wayside again. I’m back to rereading my WIP again, and I think that’s doing more harm than good right now. I did this before with Queen Ophelia’s War…I was revision-reading so often that I kind of burnt myself out with the story for a little bit and had to distance myself for a while before picking it up again.

Mind you, I find revision-reading one of the best tools I have when it comes to writing novels and prepping them for self-publication, but I sometimes need to learn that overdoing it leads to hyperfocusing on the problems and rarely getting any further. There has to be a balance.

Not that I’m burnt out on Theadia yet, thankfully. Just that I need to put it aside for a time at night. I need to read things that aren’t my own work. How else would I happen to discover new things that might inspire newer ideas? And not even that, sometimes it’s fun just to sit down and do a bit of enjoyable reading at the end of a long day! It’s a perfect wind-down activity!

So maybe what I need to do is dust off those books in the TBR pile and start cracking them open!

Catching up on reading

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My bedside reading pile looks a little less ominous these days as I’ve thinned it out a little bit, finally finishing up some titles and getting rid of others that didn’t quite work for me. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been rereading a few books by favorite authors in preparation to read a newer title in the same universe that I haven’t gotten to yet.

Recently I’ve finished Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game in preparation to start reading the third in the Cygnus Beta series, The Blue, Beautiful World. I’d read them way back in the summer of 2015, and though I clearly remember loving the books, it seems I’d forgotten why, until reading them again. The style is very much in my wheelhouse, and must have inspired or influenced me in some way, as the books’ style is very similar to mine. I read these right about the same time I’d been working on self-publishing the Bridgetown Trilogy, so I must have been looking for something to inspire my future projects.

There’s also the fact that with age and maturity (even within the last decade), I hadn’t noticed just how brilliant the setting is: it’s a story regarding a dying planet that could have been grimdark and dystopian…but wasn’t. It’s about what happens to the survivors, learning to live and adjust to new planets and new cultures, and focuses on a group of people dedicated to ensuring this emigration is successful. It’s actually kind of hopeful without quite being hopepunk.

This, by the way, is similar to the setting of my current WIP Theadia: a story regarding a possible incoming war between galactic sectors…but isn’t merely about the war itself. It’s about what happens to those about to be affected by it, and focuses on a group of people dedicated to ensuring the damage is minimal. Purely coincidental, by the way, considering I hadn’t reread the two books in nearly a decade, but on the other hand, I’m kind of secretly thrilled that I feel like I’m pulling it off. Rereading this series basically said to me, yeah, you can write this kind of thing and get away with it.

My next reread will be Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station which I remember really liking as well, followed up by his recent book Neom, which takes place in the same universe. I was especially drawn to the first book with its origins as separate shorter stories that ended up telling one larger story, and that in itself inspired me to want to someday write a novel with a similar setup. My sometimes-trunked, sometimes-not project Can’t Find My Way Home briefly had a new life back in 2017, partly inspired by that.

So in short, what I’m thinking is this: perhaps it’s time for me to do some more serious catching up on reading, because obviously I’m finally being reminded where my inspirations and influences come from, and maybe find something new in the process!

Ready to go again

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I’ve been away from my WIPs for quite a long time, to be honest. Longer than I’d planned, but I’m okay with that. I had my reasons. But now I’m ready to get back behind the keyboard and set off on another adventure.

It just so happens that I finished up another one of my Great Reread sessions of my own work (for sequel-idea or WIP-finishing purposes) as of last Saturday evening. I finished the session with the Bridgetown Trilogy primarily to psych myself up for writing MU4, and in hindsight that was a good idea. The current version of MU4 that I’m working with resonates with the previous three novels yet stands on its own quite well, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for.

And what about the other projects? Right now I have Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War on the front burners, and Sheila Take a Bow and Walk in Silence (the book) on the back burners. And I’m fine with that. I’m not worried about not having anything brand spanking new to work on — I think I’ve finally grown out of that particular hang up. I have the stories I want to tell, and I’m ready to start writing them. And if anything new does eventually come along, well, that’s what the 750Words site is for, right?

This also means I’m ready to start reading books again! Yay! I’ve finally gotten past the reading burnout and the indifference of my TBR pile, and I’m looking forward to catching up with what I have. And I’m also looking forward to looking for new titles again, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I don’t get that burnout all that often, but I’m glad in the knowledge that when it does happen, it doesn’t last for all that long.

I’m ready to go again, and I can’t wait!

Reading…or lack thereof

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I’m allowing myself a good reason for not reading anything new for quite some time: I’ve been mostly rereading my active WIPs and reacquainting myself with them for future work. But to be perfectly honest, I haven’t done any major reading in quite some time.

It could be that working through the 1,700-page, two-hardcover version of Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In might have fried my brain earlier in the year, but I just don’t find myself wanting to actively read these last couple of months other than the occasional manga or my own stuff. I’m not even overly excited about all that many recent genre books lately, which is a bit of a surprise. No fault of the authors or their novels, mind you — I’m just assuming this is just a temporary literary burnout. I’m still buying some titles of my favorite authors or books that intrigue me and saving them for later. Supporting the authors and my local indie bookstore and all that.

When am I going to return back to reading for the enjoyment of it? Good question. I’m not going to let it worry me too much because I’ve gone through this before in the past. It’s just a phase. I’m just going to continue focusing on my own writing for a bit, and once that’s finished I’ll see where I go from there. My bedside TBR pile will be dusted off and ready to go when I’m ready myself.