Category Archives: Reading

My Favorite-Folktale Formula

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So I’ve been looking for a shorthand/formula for m-o-n-t-h-s now, and finally sat down and created one out of the tales I constantly return to.  And it works!  Made it very clear which elements do and don’t belong in *this* novel.

I started by analyzing favorite Beauty and the Beast and Iron John variants, then compiled a structure/format that also fit other tales

  • The Ebony Horse
  • East of the Sun, West of the Moon
  • The Lindorm King (of course)
  • The Lady and the Lion
  • “A Flowering Tree” (basically a pre-marital counseling session wrapped in a folktale. I might be able to write this novel in my 50s)

This covers pretty much all the complex tales I am drawn to, showing relationship development (usually in a nutshell), and allowing both the man and the woman to think and affect their “destinies.”

  1. Opening state.  Usually there are some inherent qualities of the MC
    1. Birth; e.g. royalty, other significant parentage (optional)
    2. Attitude; which attitude depends on the needs of the story
  2. Other intrudes
    1. Does M.C. notice?
    2. How does M.C.respond? Acceptance (in this model), but how?
      1. reluctantly?
      2. with fear?
      3. innocence/naivety?
  3. Physical separation from the known
    1. Frequently this includes an emotional connection with a former stranger
    2. If the emotional connection is skipped/missed there are deeper regrets and pain in the next step
  4. Physical separation from the new known
    1. Opportunity for character discovery- self and/or others
    2. Journey to return
      1. Sometimes a series of tasks/helpers to process
      2. often anguish of seeing things changed while gone
  5. The closing FIND, usually with a final twist that is victory beyond mere achievement.

I like how this formula isn’t as complex as Campbell’s Journey of the Hero, and provided me with a structure to look at individual story lines for each major character.

I’ve not much liked how many steps there were to keep up with in the Hero’s journey, and how some authors feel it’s so central/clever that they’ll over-work a story to fit it.

And it always seemed a waste of time to “reject the call.”

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Snoop & Dragons

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It’s a good thing I’m not in the habit of buying new books whenever I want them, since I’ve got two new ones on my wishlist now (more, actually, but today I’m talking about:).

Snoop and Imagine Dragons.

Snoop, by Sam Gosling, is a fascinating book about using *stuff* to explore personality and how personality might be read by observing an environment. It uses the “Big Five” model of personality-typing (where I read– like most people would expect– as an extrovert), and uses particular environmental cues connected to those 5 elements.

I am loving the contrast between this typing and the Myers-Briggs model, since they really tell me very different things about myself and others.  If I still like OCEAN after finishing this book I might big-five type my main characters to see the differences.

For example, just as I am an introvert according to the M-B definition and extrovert under OCEAN, I think my MC is the reverse.

One way I’m trying to say it so far is M-B is pretty good at describing behavior (especially putting it in context with a whole individual) while I’m guessing OCEAN is more useful at predicting behavior– though both can do either, of course.

The other book is what convinced me I could never go 100% to any of the digital platforms, though I’ve convinced myself that for non-picture books I’d actually like an e-reader: if I’m buying new anyway.

  • the book takes up less space physically
  • is usually cheaper (price would determine format choice) and
  • is easily searchable
    • Most of why I hang onto a book is because I *need* some perfect line or example at my fingertips.
      • this, BTW, is what is most traumatic about having all my book collection packed away.

My favorite part of Snoop so far was in the first chapter, where the author categorized the types of stuff that fill our spaces.

  • Identity Claims
    • others-directed (See: this is who/what I am)
    • self-directed (Remember: this is who/what I want to be)
  • Feeling Regulators
    • things that exist “not to send messages about our identities but specifically to manage our emotions and thoughts.”
  • Behavioral Residue (*Love* this label. Very convicting for me)
    • What is seen because of the way you live and the choices you make.

I’m also enjoying the exploration of what makes a relationship deeper (or deepen).  hint: it’s not information exchange.  But for my current situation (where I’m living in someone else’s house– I just don’t know whose, yet), it helped me understand why I feel less settled, despite my contentment with whatever.

Beginning to think of these three elements, especially in ratio to one another, gave a bit of definition to what I’m feeling about my home.

When I prepped the house, emptied it to a showing (neutral) state, I expected to surrender the first segment– Identity Claims.  It wasn’t that important to me anyway, since visits would be about the house, not me. (Pshaw, I don’t even exist!)

What I wasn’t aware of was the “Regulating” category. Turns out books and music are HUGE regulating factors for me. And with the shift I lost both: books packed away and computers in the back room, so the music system was gone as well.

The last three weeks have involved larger and larger trips from the library (along with some buying) and an evolution of mobile music (I’ve lost my iPod Nano!) that has, I think, settled at my laptop in the kitchen with a new Pandora station.

But it’s only been with the reading of this chapter that I understand my lengthy agitation. (One that I hope is now over!)

~ ~ ~

For something completely different, please consider

I wish I could show you some images from inside the book.  They are just amazing. All this wonderful interplay between line, color and texture. (And I’m not any sort of visual artist!)

Books like these convince me I could never go 100% digital, because *what* could replace my child(ren)’s experience of studying for minutes at a time a complex image like that?  Because that’s what they do when the text is being read: exploring the picture, discovering details.

This is a book I want in my collection!

And you can believe I’ve already reserved this illustrator’s other books from my library. I am eager to see more of her work!

The book itself is a very respectable survey of dragons and lore– including stories well-summarized. The Eastern dragons may be said to be favored (commentary emphasizes they’re not-evil), but their depiction is naked enough to show them as no more kind or caring.

This was meaningful to me mainly because I like using them in discussions of dispassionate, elemental forces.

Yeah, I do that. Weird?

Anyway, I am trying to hold off on buying new books right now (at least, when they’re not inexpensive…), so I’m thankful for our library right now. It’s the patch on a big hole in my life.

from The Wounded Spirit by Frank Peretti

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But wounds can fester. They can become infected, and then they infect others.

And then they can  change you because you haven’t merely cut your finger or bruised your knee. You’ve been wounded in your spirit, and that wound pierces deeply, painfully, sometimes permanently. As Proverbs 18:14 says, “The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?” When tough times or injuries come, we must be able to draw upon a reservoir of hope, faith, and self-confidence that God has stored up inside us through the love and encouragement of friends and family. If enemies, through cunning and cruelty, have plundered that reservoir, what will sustain us then?

Won’t God sustain us? Won’t He give us the grace we need? Don’t we find our hope and strength in Him? Won’t He get us through?

Absolutely. I wouldn’t be here today if God’s presence and grace were not ultimately provable.

But that’s the rub: To prove anything ultimately takes time and experience. You have to live it out for a while, sometimes a long while. A process is involved. Even now, in so many of our lives, there are issues to be resolved and wounds that have to be faced squarely, forgiven, and healed. Many of us adults have been carrying unhealed wounds since we were children.

The Shadow of the Bear — book review

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Finally wrote another book review.

About the first of those books I wanted.

I’ve read two now, but with moving et.al. I’m feeling my own frailty, and the second book was too tenuous too long for me to be ready to spend the review time with it right now.

It was also good, and it was gratifying to see the writing mature from one book to the next, but… perhaps if you read them both you’ll understand what I mean.

Go. Find. Read.

Quite worth it.

Wow. I want these.

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Bluestocking has held Wishful Wednesday for a while now, but I have so many books on my shelves I never participated. I never had an Oh-my-goodness-popular-book-available-soon hunger, but I recently found something that is so *me* that I’m chomping at the bit.

But I just bought a collection of resources for my WIP, so now I have to wait *GAH* till next month for these.

A Christian world-view retelling of various fairy tales in a modern context.

If I may judge from the first chapter(s) (available on-line)– and I usually do– this writer knows her craft, and speaks naturally of “unatural” teenage conversation, including homeschooling, poetry, and reading choices.

Primarily it is hints from the first chapter and the words of the many “testimonials” both on her site and Amazon that have me intrigued.  It looks to be a delicious series where faith and relationship with God is compatible with teenage storytelling– and that is my deepest desire as a writer.

2009 Book Wrap-up

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Well, I didn’t even try to hook into any of the reading “challenges” floating around the web, despite referencing two of them on my own blog.

In the final analysis, I read 26 novels.  The count was encouraging, considering how few of those were in the last third of the year.  In my opening description on my 2009 Books page I said:

My goals for reading this year involves consuming copious amounts of books that wouldn’t nearly compare to more spiritual/applicable works, except that they’re part of the necessary education toward my (felt) calling of writing.  (See #5 here)

~

So reading YA Fantasy really is appropriate… and finally, (as a result of that realization) I’m no longer embarrassed to say what I’m reading.

But I tripped off the reading of novels when another need arose (usually to do with Homeschooling, food/weight loss, or relationships), and looking back I can see that *most* of that reading involved using books (as I like to say) as talismans; to reassure myself and/or ease anxiety (I did not record all of these).

I don’t think they were all bad or a waste of time, but I’m sure some of them were.  I’m not entirely sure how to prevent repeating the behavior next year, but maybe being aware will be useful.

~

Without further ado, the complete list/page of what I want to remember:

2009 Books

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Things that made me grin, or think.

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Sorry if I’ve posted these before (and maybe they’re not so funny out of the context of the novel).  I was re-reading some of my novel today (man there’s always something more to fix, isn’t there) and wanted to share a couple spots that still make me laugh.

From Chapter 19 – Appeal to the Prince (My discovery of condonation was for this chapter.)

“So it was as we hoped!” The prince’s voice was eager. “The tales have come true and the right woman has all that power, has she?” He flushed then, darting a glance at his bride, but the princess never looked up from her horse’s mane.

“Sire,” said Tykone uncomfortably, “it is closer to the stories then you may perhaps like. “I informed the Frej Kennett that he is your twin, and possibly the elder son of your house.” Tykone ducked only just in time. Rickard’s gauntleted fist swished above his head, knocking off his leather cap.

Tykone rolled easily under the prince’s horse and popped to his feet before leaning around the front of the horse to look at Rickard’s enraged expression. “That was very nearly the answer I got from him, but he was quicker. I wouldn’t want to be stuck between you.”

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Celebration of Miscellanea

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My laptop is back.

But it’s not.

I was shipped a new (refurbished) machine instead of my old one (poor dear must have been too far gone), and one of the results of getting a new machine is that it is compatible with a recently released *illuminated keyboard.*

Believe-you-me we ordered it right away, and Jay just installed it tonight. Way. beyond. cool.

So the book-cataloging software is all that’s left, right?

Well, I’ve just picked one because I got tired of comparing them, and I have the scanning gun to speed the inputting process on those books that have bar codes.

A rough, unscientific, scanning of my shelves indicates a 50/50 split (I have a lot of old and/or jacketless books), but I still think this device was worth buying.  I inputted maybe a dozen ISBNs to experiment with before I had the scanner, and those took more time and focus than the 32 I popped in tonight to see how the scanner works.

Anyway, I have one more book-buying spree on my calendar (Kids’ books are half-off next week), then I expect the rigorous reality of school to fill up all our time.

All we need now are boxes small enough to lift when full of books, and they will be quietly packed away until called for.

And I don’t think I’ve yet said it here, but I’ve lost nearly 13 pounds this summer.  I finally passed the point where I could feel the difference myself, rather than just seeing it in my clothes.

My mom’s been saying for weeks that she could see the change, but she doesn’t see me every day…

Yes, I’m celebrating.  God is good.