I’m not so much about thrillers, but the literary part as well as some books on this list are enticing:

Literary Thrillers for the Book Lover

A Career in Creative Writing: I had an interesting week as a writer.   I found this new podcast called “The Secrets“.  (It was pretty easy to find the archive through iTunes.)  Mike Stackpole makes a full time living as a creative writing, reason enough to listen.

I started by going through the podcasts about “career” and something occurred to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever considered actually making  a living this way.  I’ve always thought that being a writer meant you picked your medium (for me, novelist), and then got an idea, plugged away at the novel (there’s more than enough formulas to learn from), and when you were done, shopped it around and started the next novel.

WRONG.  I mean, not wrong, actually, but I never thought about it more than that til this year, and never ever considered making a living as a full time creative writer.  That means doing novels and most likely short stories too.  Stackpole offered some amazing advice on this topic.  Since this is (without doubt) my calling, I decided that I am going to consider working towards this as my eventual goal.  Now, it does mean that I need to do things that at present I’m not even sure I have the confidence to be able to do.  On the other hand, if it’s my divine calling, and I TRY my best to work at the objectives proposed by those who are experts at making this kind of living, then why not?

On genre: I just finished watching “The Seeker”, a film recommended by an SF/FF I know as an adult-worthy kid flick  It is a pretty good film.  Of course, it is based on a book and it is geared for the YA audience.  What I really liked about it was that far more than other YA book-based films (”Narnia”, “Harry Potter”), THIS one made me think of the kind of stories I liked to make up as a kid (before the concept of “writer” was on the table as a career possibility).  I think this appealed to me more because of the whole time travel aspect, which I’m a freak for (thanks to “Wrinkle in Time”).  I wander, if I’m really going the SF/F writer route, should I explore this genre (YA)?  Just some food for thought…

Books on My “Next” List:  There are two I’m excited about:

1.  “Book of Lies” by Brad Meltzer.  Thanks to Citizen Mom for bringing this to my attention.  Murder, the Bible and conspiracy, and a really COOL trailer (with Joss Whedon no less).  Shades of Dan Brown??
2. “Veil of Roses” by Laura Fitzgerald.  Saw this in the store, and as soon as hubby is employed and I can buy books again, this too will be in the next round.  Only caught her site because she is a fellow WIFFER, you ROCK, Laura!

That’s it.  Over to mom-blog to update…g’night.

Ok, I asked my women designer’s list, since I know they are a bunch of readers, to recommend some stories, as I keep hearing “read your genre”. So here is a list of what has been recommended to fit my particular (read as “finicky”) tastes:

• Guy Gavriel Kay? Particularly the Fionavar Tapestries (thanks Joni)
• Recluce series by L. E. Modesitt Jr. (hats off to Tina, who did homework on this for me)
• Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark Hunter novels and Breed series by Lora Leigh-more SF’y (shout out to Faye)
• David Eddings esp The Belgariad (5 books), The Mallorean (also 5 books), Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress; Anne McCaffrey (without dragons); Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar; Andre Norton. And Terry Pratchett; Timothy Zahn; Roxann Dawson’s Tenebra Trilogy (from my extremely well-read pal, Margie)
• Janny Wurts and Raymond Feist; CS Friedman on ley lines (Thanks Shelly, knew you’d contribute)
• Sherwood Smith; Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls; Carol Berg’s Flesh & Spirit and Breath & Bone; Robin Hobb (thanks Debbie)
• George R. R. artin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (Thank you Sara!)
• Black, Red, and White books by Ted Dekker. (cool rec by Karey)

And of course, Marion Zimmer Bradley (RIP), Ursula LeGuin and why didn’t anyone mention Octavia Butler? I believe she has a book on mind control?

FWIW, someone recommended “A Thousand Words for Stranger”, not really my cup of tea, although I did really enjoy the parts about the Mihr…made me think differently about my novel. I also like the whole “woman with no memory on the run” and the love story, but I just cringe at non-humanoid aliens, unless they are visiting aliens (like in Butler, or “The Sparrow”). Too much Star Trek as a child I guess (the James T. Kirk/Spock variety, but I am a sucker for the Picard/Data series too…)

Well, there is a time and a season for all things, and this is my time NOT to write. There is just too much going on, and I can’t wrap my head around creativity.

In fact, last night I was pondering my own story - which is a long journey involving health (physical and mental) and spirituality - and while I realized this was a good basis for a fictional book, my own internal dictation involved no actual PLOT. So it needs work, and maybe this is a mull-it-over scenario for now.

BUT I have been reading, a lot. Last night, I reached a point in my current novel documented atrocities and I realized that most of the novels I’ve read in the past year have included this. Perhaps it’s because I prefer historical drama, and this sort of thing makes the best historical dramas, but here’s a list of what I’ve read, with a star beside the fictional books that included genocide, torture, or such events:

The Historian*
Bee Season: A Novel
The Witch of Cologne*
The Birth of Venus: A Novel*
Water for Elephants: A Novel
A Thread of Grace*
The Bastard of Istanbul*
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

Feels like I read more, wonder what I’m forgetting? I got to thinking about this a lot, since I am NOT a person who can stomach or in any way see the logic in purposefully inflicting pain on others. In fact, my tolerance for pain is so low, and my imagination is high so reading this stuff is torture for me. Now, outside of thinking myself a masochist, I wondered why it so happens that half (or more?) of my reading list looks likes this.

I do like seeing characters put into impossible odds. And to be fair, I didn’t foresee such circumstances in each book (Bastard of Istanbul, for example). But, then again, perhaps it’s just the eternal, “what would I do?” that captivates all of us as fiction readers.

My husband looked at my Amazon wishlist and pooh-poohed it. It’s full of - wait for it -

BOOKS!

Dear God, what was I thinking???

This cracks me up. I remember going to buy a book for one of my nieces and being told “are you crazy” by my sister. Apparently other people don’t think books are the amazing, awesome, wonderful fun thing I thought they were.

Now I had my share of Barbie’s and dolls and crafts and my share of not getting that electronic thing my cousins got because they were boys as a kid - so don’t get me wrong - but let me tell you, when I saw that shape and size that could ONLY be a new book, my heart would pound. Was it a new Nancy Drew? Or maybe “Wrinkle in Time”? Or something different?

To this day, I LOVE gift certificates for bookshops. This summer, I took a long and boring (REALLY boring) survey at Adobe.com because they were giving away $25 Amazon gift certificates.

My kids are little, but seem to like books so far. I hope it stays with them and that reading is fun for them, not a chore. I love the excitement of a whole brand new world opening up - especially if it’s an exceptional quality fantasy book (rare to find, Ursula K. LeGuin and JK Rowling notwithstanding).

To be frank, all that reading made me a bit smarter than my fellow schoolmates I think. It IS good for your brain. So if your kids love to read, embrace it. It’ll make life easier for them. I mean they need to read a ton in high school and 10 times more in college, and some really dry stuff too. Read to them, read with them, let them read comic books (which I love) and cereal boxes, and don’t laugh.