Category: On Reading

More on Rereading…and Transcribing

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

All this rereading of my finished novels, WIPs and backburner projects has also kicked off more rereading, this time of my early longhand writing. Right now I’m going through some of my old chapbook poetry and lyrics, transcribing some of them and making personal notes. Why? Well, why not?

One of the reasons for doing this now is that I’m conducting a writing experiment. I’m assigning myself to work on something every day, without fail. I’m assigning myself simple things like doing some fun Walk in Silence (the book) work on 750Words and this poetry transcription. Easy writing that would take less than an hour out of my day. That was the impetus: I wanted to see if I could do a full month in a row. I started on June 1, kept on going, and I haven’t missed a day yet, so that’s nearly two months right there. Not bad at all, really. I see no reason why I should stop now.

I’ve mentioned before that I’d assigned myself a transcription project back in the summer of 1995 and into spring of 1996. I’d done it then as I’d finally had access to a computer and wanted a digital copy of my juvenilia for safe-keeping as well as for easier access. [There was also the fact that I’d done it as a distraction to avoid falling into a self-loathing spiral due to my failure at staying in Boston, but that’s another story.] That was the last time I’d done it to any considerable extent. This has become a bit of a problem in the present time, because a lot of that work was written using the MS Write program which no longer exists, and WRI files don’t translate well at all to Word or Notepad. I have the printouts…but I’d really like to have the digital versions once more.

Why am I doing this instead of writing novels, you ask? Well, I’m getting there. The rereads of the current work are preparing me for the novel projects. Refreshing my memory of the novel projects I’d like to work on next. And I still have a ways to go before I’m fully ready. It’s prep work.

It’s also interesting to read words I’ve written that I haven’t reread to any serious extent for nearly three decades. While there’s a lot in there at my most inexperienced, there are also smaller gems: unique ideas and impressive passages that merely needed the work of a much better writer. I had to start somewhere, and I wasn’t afraid to start at the bottom just like everyone else. I’m also finding elements of myself then that explain who I am now.

That’s what’s making it worthwhile: looking back in order to move forward.

Rereading My Work

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Sure, I’ll reread my own work, whether it’s completed and self-published, incomplete and on the backburner, or trunked and best forgotten. I do it rather often, actually, and for various reasons. Since releasing Diwa & Kaffi out into the world, I gave that one yet another once-over, just to see how it looks in epub format. [Quite nice, actually.] After that I reread In My Blue World with the idea of toying with the possibility of writing its sequel. And now I’m rereading what I have of Queen Ophelia (which, now that I think about it, should really be titled Queen Ophelia’s War if I’m going to keep the title at all). I plan to reread Theadia after that.

I’m rereading these three to decide which project I should work on next while also working on MU4. I’m still undecided as to which one to tackle so I’m refamiliarizing myself with the stories to see which one resonates with me the most. Sure, I could come up with a completely new idea if I wanted, but I’m holding back on that because I feel these still have merit, even if they do need a hell of a lot of work.

And that’s the other reason for the rereads: how much work do they need, and is it worth spending the time? I don’t think any of them need a major overhaul, thankfully, and the newer ideas just need their outlines fleshed out and the stories written. I don’t count MU4 here, because that’s in an altogether different beast; when I have the time I’ll reread the original trilogy and what I have of 4 because that particular project needs a different kind of immersion.

It’s a lot of work and it surely eats into my GoodReads numbers, but I’ve found that this is part of a larger process that works really well for my projects — it’s just enough immersion into the created world so that I can easily slide back into it and move forward.

That Time Again: Reading What I Have So Far

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Yup, it’s time once again for me to read what I have so far of my projects. The other night I finished reading Project A, and I’m now on the second chapter of Project B. So what do I have to say for myself?

Well, Project A has a lot of…gaps. It’s not horrible work, but I think I can add a few more scenes in between what I do have to make the story that much richer. These will essentially do two things: one, it’ll show the two main characters interacting with the different worlds they find themselves in, and two, it will expand on a few of the secondary characters that will become important later on. This one has been coming along really well and I’m quite proud of what I have so far — it’s sort of a distant cousin of In My Blue World in that it’s a Parallel World fantasy, and I find that I’m really enjoying writing that kind of thing. Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with more of them soon enough!

As for Project B? Well…you can definitely tell I had a bad case of the First Chapter Flails here. Or first chapters, really. By the time I got to maybe Chapter Four I had a better idea of where it’s all going. I can salvage a lot of it by way of snipping out some of the extraneous dead ends and insert a few things that I came up with much later in the story as a mirror plot point. The other day I was in bed reading this one and made myself get up to add four words — just a half-sentence that now makes a vague hint at an extremely important plot point much later in the book. That’s mainly what I need to do with this one: go back and realign the beginning stuff so it works with the ending stuff. I think I might be done with this one by sometime mid-November if I keep up, so I’m already looking forward to working on this one!

As for Project C…? Well, I’ve been bad with that one the last week or so, but that’s because I’ve been working on the outline instead. I should probably be back on that one by next week. I haven’t reread that one in a while, but I think I’ll do that after I finish reading Project B. We shall see…

In the meantime, I’ve also been sneaking in quick doodles for Inktober all this month and I’m proud to say that this is probably the first year I’ve been able to do it this consistently all the way to the end. (You can see my drawings on my Twitter and my Instagram.) I guess this experiment of mine of being super-involved with daily scheduling is working out better than I thought! Woo!

Getting back to reading

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I was doing so well, too. I’ve already hit my GoodReads goal of 80 books for the year (which, yes, includes manga and a few rereads) and I’ve still got three more months’ worth of reading to go. And my Mount Read Me pile is well under control. So what’s happening?

Well, what’s happening is that I felt like reading what I have so far of my current three WIPs. And when that happens, I sometimes fall into a habit of digging through my Dropbox files to find other files to read. I get into a habit of rereading some of my own writing that ends up lasting for a good couple of weeks. There’s also the fact that I bought a new tiny tablet (a Lenovo Tab 7, 3rd Gen) and I just want to play with it for a while. SO! What to do…? I’ve already caught up with Story So Far reading (status: they’re definitely rough drafts but they all have promise), so there’s really no reason for me to keep this up.

Time to get back to reading other peoples’ work. I mean, this is exactly how I find inspiration and influence, right? I have a few ‘I will read anything by them’ authors in this TBR pile, along with some titles that were suggested from others or from Publishers Weekly, and I even have a smallish pile of older music bios that I haven’t gotten through yet. I’ve proven to myself that most of these books I can fly through in a few days, so I can clear that pile by the end of the year if I so choose.

Meanwhile, the WIPs will always be there on my cloud if I need to read them again. I probably won’t for another couple of months or until one or more of them are finally finished, whichever comes first. And if I desperately need to goof off on my tablet again, I did download the Nook app on it, and I have at least a dozen or so books there as well!

Magazines

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I used to subscribe to a number of writing magazines all the time, but a few years back I ended up letting them all lapse. I used to get Asimov’s and some of the other fiction digests, as well as the writer-centric ones like Writer, Writer’s Digest and Publishers Weekly. [I also used to get a few music magazines, but it felt like all the ones I liked were either going digital-only or closing down. My music info is mostly via radio, social media and music blogs these days.]

Why did I let them lapse, anyway? Partly because I was overloading myself with too many things at the time. Between balancing the Day Job and writing and self-publishing novels and buying new music and other personal goings-on, I guess I just ran out of brainspace for them. That was about the time I decided it was time to do some high-level life-cleaning and emotional purging, so those were the first to go.

However, recently I’ve been feeling the urge to re-subscribe to some of these titles I enjoyed back in the day. I’ve been feeling very disconnected from the field over the last few months. Not in terms of pandemic hibernation, more like I feel like I’ve fallen out of touch with what’s going on in my chosen long term career field. A personal hibernation, I guess…after I published In My Blue World and did the usual push when and where possible, I disconnected from a lot of things.

I think it’s high time to reconnect. See what’s going on. See where I fit in with the rest of the writing world. Adjust where necessary, learn new things, find out new information. See what jobs are open, freelance and otherwise. Get inspired again. The other week I re-subscribed to Publishers Weekly because I got a lot out of it on a business level. Plus, their book reviews are great, and they have a monthly segment centered around self-publishing called Booklife that’s also given me a lot to work with and think about. I’m also contemplating getting WD and Writer again, and who knows, maybe I’ll go nuts and sample some of the fiction digests again!

Back to Reading Genre Fiction

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I spent the last few months of 2020 speeding through the backlog of music biographies I had in Spare Oom, and before that I’d been catching up on a few comics (which I also did at the end of the year and start of this one, reading the entire Giant Days run by John Allison), so it’s been an absurdly long time since I last read genre fiction.

I’m trying to put a bit more thought into what I read this year. I’ve said earlier that I want to read more self-published and indie work — you know, to give my fellow writers a boost and all that. I also want to keep up with the pace I’ve been reading at as well. I’ve been finishing most smaller books in a few days, and the bigger ones usually take about a week. [Noted: I’m currently reading Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn and it’s a long one, but it’s quite a fun and excellent read so I’m zipping through at a reasonably good clip.] My current GoodReads challenge is at 80 books this year.

Thankfully I don’t have any current writing projects that need Yet Another Revision Read any time soon, so I can get ahead on clearing my To Be Read pile and not have new titles kicking around for months on end. I mean, I might reread the Bridgetown Trilogy at some point, just so I can get some inspiration and ideas for MU4, but other than that, I’ve got all the books to read and, finally, the time to read them!

Updates and whatnot

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

First on the docket: FREE BOOKS!

Yes, it’s that time of year again, and all five of my ebooks are available for free until the first of January over at Smashwords! Here are the links:

In My Blue World
Meet the Lidwells! A Rock n’ Roll Family Memoir
The Mendaihu Universe Book 1: A Division of Souls
The Mendaihu Universe Book 2: The Persistence of Memories
The Mendaihu Universe Book 3: The Balance of Light

All five books are available in multiple formats, so you can read on any PC, laptop, or ereader! Because I like looking out for y’all.

*

Second of all: chances are I might not have too much to ramble on about in the next few weeks as I’m most likely going to just keep busy offline with my other projects as well as celebrating the holidays, so if you don’t see any posts in the next few Monday/Friday go-rounds, that’s the reason. It’s not that I’m busy, it’s that I’m enjoying not being busy!

*

I’m happy to say that late last night I came up with an idea that could significantly improve the opening of MU4, which I’ve been struggling with the last few weeks. As usual, it revolves around my penchant for starting the story at the wrong time! Of course, I’d already logged off, and had even turned off the bedside light to go to sleep when it came to me, but thankfully I was able to remember it this morning, so that will be part of today’s work. Yay for breaking through a block!

*

I’m still plowing through my music bios and it looks like I’m down to maybe 15 unread books at this point, which blows my mind. I never thought I’d be that caught up! Speaking of reading, I’ve done a factory reset of my e-reader (somehow the keyboard had stopped working) which wiped a number of apps that I’d had on there that I probably didn’t need and never used, but on the plus side, I’ve filled it up with a number of cheap or free e-books that I plan on hitting next year. My average books-per-year has hovered around 70 or so and I’d like to up that. (Why so low? Primarily because over the last few years I’ve been spending a considerable amount of reading-in-bed time doing project revision, and that can take up to a few weeks at a time. I currently do not have any projects at that level at this point.) I can zip through a good-sized book in a few days so for next year’s GoodReads challenge I think I’ll set it at 100 and see how far I get.

*

Speaking of reading, what was my favorite books I read this year? Good question. I’ll need to refer to my GoodReads list and get back to you on that. That could be a good post in itself!

*

…and that’s all I have for now. Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas holiday!

Reading and Publishing

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I really need to get myself back in the habit of reading more genre fiction again. I mean, not that I’ve been wasting my time at night — my music bio backlog is considerably smaller now — but I’m thinking that I really need to start reading more SF/F. I’ve been kind of avoiding it over the past few years, to be honest. I didn’t plan on it, it just happened that way. I don’t think it’s negatively impacted my genre writing to any serious degree, but it wouldn’t hurt to return to the source again.

One thing I’ve been meaning to do for a while is read more ebooks, and in particular, more indie publications. The other day I decided I was finally going to make good on that by downloading titles from B&N and elsewhere. Most of these are quite cheap and, like my Bridgetown Trilogy, the first book in a series is often free!

You know what I also haven’t done in ages? Self-publishing! I’ve been thinking about it a lot this past year, since I’ve been focused on submitting Diwa & Kaffi. I truly do miss the DIY aspect of it — creating covers, toying with photo editing software, making postcard freebies, and all that — and I’d love to return to that. I’m thinking in 2021 I may in fact do so, especially if I can get one or two of my stories prepped and ready to go. I especially would love to take my photography a lot more seriously again. I do have a creator’s account with Shutterstock that’s currently not doing anything, so perhaps it’s high time I reactivate that as well.

I suppose these two things could be the start of my New Year’s Plans. Sure, why not? I mean, I can start working on a lot of this whenever I like; no reason I actually need to wait until the first of January. [In fact, the other day I jumpstarted the ebook buying and spent $6 on four books and one book bundle!] I have most of what I need to make it all happen, so all I need to do is take the next steps.

Let’s make this happen. Pandemic or not, time to make it all happen.

A bit of reading

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I’ve been on a reading kick lately, digging through various sections of my To Be Read list. Right now I’m cleaning out my Music Bio shelf and blasting through a number of them; Chrissie Hynde’s Reckless (ridiculous and funny), Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band (no f*cks given), Pat Benatar’s Between a Heart and a Rock Place (badass fun) Ani DiFranco’s No Walls and the Recurring Dream (a bit cringe for varying reasons and could not finish), Chris Frantz’s Remain in Love (fun and endearingly wholesome), and Graham Nash’s Wild Tales (quite the drug-happy horndog back in the day) are just a few recent reads, with more to go. I’m devouring those just as fast as I devour manga tankobon, so I should be able to hit my GoodReads year-end goal pretty easily.

It occurs to me that as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I probably should read more of that genre. I mean, aside from rereading my own stuff for revision purposes! Heh. Seriously, I’ve been kind of lazy in checking out new titles over the last couple of years, and maybe a bit too choosy as well. Although I have been tempering that by catching up on a few older titles never got around to until recently (Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent books are absolutely amazing!), I really need to open my eyes to new stuff again.

I guess part of that is because I’ve been feeling a bit distanced from my own genre as of late. I still love writing in it, still like coming up with some great ideas, but when the only genre titles I’ve been reading are my own, then I end up in an echo chamber of my own making, and that’s not good. I need to look out there and see what’s going on, what other writers are talking about. Oftentimes I’ll be inspired, whether directly or indirectly, and I feel like I’ve been missing that.

I mean, not that I need more books in this house. But still.

Reading new books

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
Source: Makoto Shinkai, ‘The Garden of Words’

Please I beg of you if you want to be a published author read one effing book published in the last 5 years. Just start with one. I’m BEGGING. — Sarah Nicolas on Twitter

*

Last week a YA author posted the above tweet, but the reaction to it was quite unexpectedly divisive. While quite a few authors completely agreed with her, there were just as many who acted as if she’d took the lord’s name in vain or something similar.

To be honest, I totally get what she means by it, but it’s not something I can easily explain in just a few words. Personally, I’ll admit to reading a lot of books that have been published within the last five years, and hardly any that are older than that. It’s just my tastes, I guess? I did a ton of reading of the classics when I was younger; I was a middling Asimov fan and had a brief obsession with Vonnegut, but I kind of grew out of that in the mid-90s when I started reading more recent titles.

For me, it was never about trying to stay on top of whatever happened to be popular at the time. Even then I understood that it would no longer be hip by the time I got my own manuscript out there. It was more about checking out different voices and styles. Each writer has their own way of using and even subverting trusted ideas and tropes to make them unique to their own style. It’s informed not just by their imagination but often by their culture.

Sure, I’ll occasionally pick up an old book now and again. I still have to get through the last few books of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series, nearly all the CJ Cherryh Union-Alliance books, reread Mary Gentle’s Ash books, and all those Robotech tie-ins. I’ve been wanting to revisit the Transmetropolitan trades, and I’m about to get caught up with John Allison’s Giant Days trades as well. So many books, so little time!

But back to that tweet. I mean, I can understand how some might have been upset by it (though to the point of trolling harassment is just a titch overboard, mind you), but let’s be honest: there really is a lot more out there nowadays. A LOT more, thanks to indie and self-publishing, e-books, anthologies, Kickstarter-funded publications, and even concerted efforts by big name publishers to introduce new voices.

If you want to write similar to Tolkien or Asimov or even George RR Martin or Stephen King, by all means, go for it. If that’s the style you’re best at, that’s cool. But this tweet isn’t about forcing you out of that style — this is suggesting that perhaps you should check out more recent books written in a similar style. Perhaps you’ll see that the genre has evolved in ways you hadn’t expected, giving you an even wider playing field for your created universe.