January Review

 

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Well, here I was thinking it was the 3rd Wednesday in January and contemplating if I wanted to put in a blog every other week instead of weekly, aaaand it's the 4th Wednesday. I've failed. But that's okay! Now I get to review the month, what I read, what I wrote, what this month has been like.


This week, I read "Emergency Skin" by N.K. Jemisin, It is Book #3 in the Forward Collection, and I forgot that it wasn't a collection by itself but part of one. That said, I need to go back and at least preview the other stories.

This one is in kind of in 2nd person? It's more like dialogue. Someone's talking to "you" as you're moving along, but then real dialogue starts. You never hear what you're saying, just the responses. It was very interesting, and in this day and age, when I realized what was actually happening in the story, it was very timely. I especially love the last few lines. Please read it.

I started writing in one of my romances. I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but I do remember saying once that I want to revamp fan fictions I wrote but into standard contemporary fictions. I'm really excited about this one. It's emotionally charged, and I get to play with writing songs for it, which I did the first time, too.

I also started looking over my NA urban fantasy. There are some things I need to change, and it might be shorter than I expect it to be. I'll see how it goes. As for my sequel to Fractured Princess, I need to look through that again, too. FP itself is next in line for editing, so that will have to come first. I've already talked to the editor about a few things, so while the book won't totally change, there will be a couple of significant tweaks in the re-release. I'm excited about it.

This weekend, DVPit is having a virtual convention. Registration might still be open, so if you are a marginalized writer, I suggest peeking over there if you have time. The website is: https://www.dvpit.com/dvcon.

Enjoy the rest of January!

IWSG: Happy New Year!

 


And we're back! Happy New Year! It is the first Wednesday of January 2021! I can't believe how 2020 felt like the longest and shortest year at the same time, but I'm grateful that it's over.

We are jumping right back into the swing of things with the Insecure Writer's Support Group's first post of the year. Please visit the website and our great founder, Alex J. Cavanaugh, as well as the co-hosts for the month, which can be found on his website.

After NaNoWriMo, I took an unexpected break in December. Trying to write over a thousand words a day for 30 days is not something I like to do, or was even able to do, especially having a full time job and a lot of other responsibilities. But it was good to know I could write every day. My goal this year is just write more, and get back into reading. I certainly acquired enough e-books to get me through a few years.

Each month, there is an optional question for the group, and this month's is: Being a writer, when you're reading someone else's work, what stops you from finishing a book/throws you out of the story/frustrates you the most about other people's books?

I want to say one of the big reasons I don't finish a book is because the writing is bad, but I have 15 unfinished books on my Goodreads list, so let me look through some of my reviews on why.

-problematic tropes towards minorities (stumbled on that a few times, looks like)

-stagnant plots (I gave one book 3 stars and still didn't finish it! I'm almost sure it was moving too slowly.)

-inactive main characters (why are the supporting characters doing all the work?)

-implausibility

-forced romance

-and yes, bad writing (clichés, redundancies, info dumps, awkward/bad sentence structures)

If there is a combination of the above, as there was in at least 3 of the 15, then I definitely don't finish.


I'd love to hear some of your answers, too!