WWW Wednesday: 30 Jan 2013 (Find out what I’m reading this week)

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading asks you to answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?

I am only at page 75 of this book even though I've had it for a while. I'm determined to finally finish a Dessen book though.

What did you recently finish reading?

Holy crap! Wow! I just loved this. I couldn't put it down. It wasn't just the imagery that Oliver used but the pacing was just so right. I highly recommend it (and, as I always say, will do a proper review of it soon.)

What do you think you’ll read next?

     

I have plenty of books that are stored on my Nook and my Kindle that I own and still haven't gotten around to reading, so maybe I can get to one of those next time.

WWW Wednesday: 16 Jan 2012 (Find out what I’m reading this week)

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading asks you to answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?

I know I'm posting this on Thursday, but I didn't want to skip my reading entry for the majority of the week.

I still find this book very prescriptive and dull. There’s no real inspiration behind the ideas we’re given for the writing process and now that I’m 105 or so pages in and still needing to get the 198 to finish it, I may very well just quit.

The ideas are fine and it is interesting to see how people can think of novels but using charts to divide up how many pages you give each character isn’t interesting in the slightest. Again, as I say, most writers are not going to turn off once you show them numbers and charts and percentages – at least I do.

What did you recently finish reading?

Nothing recently.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I think I’m going to just finish this one up next. I had to return Along for the Ride to the library.

Friday Reads for 11 Jan 2013

My Goodreads Reading Challenge for 2013 is to read (at least) 30 books. I looked around my couch and made a list of 26 “to read” books that were either on my Kindle, Nook, or coffee table. Some of these are Friday Finds because I recently got them in ebook form from the library.

There are plenty of books I have stashed away that I can still get to but after making this list, I get the idea that I do not need to purchase any more books. Well, until I bump my challenge number to 40 or 50. I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding new books I want to read.

1. Novel Writing - Marshall
2. The Truth About Forever - Dessen
3. Along for the Ride - Dessen
4. Beautiful Creatures - Garcia and Stohl
5. Reading like a Writer - Prose
6. Liar and Spy - Stead
7. The Diary of Anne Frank - Frank
8. If I Stay - Foreman
9. Eve - Carey
10. Adoration of Jenna Fox - Pearson
11. Cold Kiss - Garvey
12. Hollowland - Hocking
13. Must Love Dogs - Cook
14. The Summer I Turned Pretty - Han
15. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
16. Bright Young Things - Godbersen
17. Pretty Little Liars: Killer - Shepard
18. Pretty Little Liars: Heartless - Shepard
19. Burn for Burn - Han and Vivian
20. Matched - Condie
21. One Day - Nicholls
22. The Secret Life of Bees – Kidd
23. Glass – Hopkins
24. Mockingjay – Collins
25. All the Wrong Questions? – Snicket
26. Divergent – Roth

Of course I also have classics to finish reading like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Again, these are books that I can access right now. There are plenty of others on my “to read” list.

WWW Wednesday: 9 Jan 2013 (Find out what I’m reading this week)

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading asks you to answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?

I got this book for the Nook at the library. It's really prescriptive, which isn't my thing or a lot of other writer's way of setting up a novel, but it's interesting. Well, it was during Part 1 where it talked about how to set up (stereotypical) characters, who should be the lead, the anti-hero, the confidant, etc. Then in Part 2, things got really confusing. Writers are word people and trying to explain how to mathematically break up a plot and judge how many pages a book in your target genre should be was kind of ridiculous. (I mean, if you read books in your target genre, won’t you already know a rough number of pages that each include?)

Marshall started discussing formulas and came up with,

Book lines on a full 9 = number of words

On a full 9 what? Full 9 pages? Why would I have to do this? There are plenty of web sites out there that tell you how many words books in your genre should roughly be. Page number is going to be different depending on formatting. I think it’s a bit overboard to go into detail about how you can find this out. Marshall even included a full page chart on how to decide how many sections you need per you word count and how many goals you should have for each section.

Again, the tips are way too clinical and most writers know how plot works (There was actually a little box diagram to show that plot was a 1/4 beginning, 2/4 middle, and 1/4 end, instead of the typical triangle diagram with intro, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.) If this has to be explained, I’m guess this book is targeted for new writers and those who are writing mystery/crime thrillers.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all and it’s fine to see how other people think about creating their plot. I just sort of zoned out during this second part because it’s not about art but about formulas. Of course we all need some kind of organization so, again, if this is helpful to writers, that’s fine.

What did you recently finish reading?

I haven’t read anything in its entirety for a while except for my Life in the UK test booklet.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I already have two Sara Dessen books checked out so I’ll get through those next.

Friday Reads for 4 Jan 2013

I've been reading The Truth About Forever on my Nook. I've tried to read a Dessen novel many times but I never got very far. I'm planning to at least finish a couple of her novels early this year.

Friday Finds via Should Be Reading, “where you share the book titles you discovered or heard about during the past week” --



I just discovered this book in my Marie Clare magazine (the one with Emma Watson on it for Feb 2013.) I'd like to read even though I'm not sure about the British references and the mild Goodreads reviews.