I did a thing this week that I’ve never done before. I knowingly kept a library book past its due date. 😬
The book in question is one I was tasked with reading for my SciFi/Fantasy book club. It clocked in at 618 pages. And I had already renewed it twice without issue (as I hadn’t started it yet since I was trying to finish other books for other book clubs). I had intended to renew it again – but this time, someone had placed a hold. A hold that didn’t exist when I had been in my account just one day prior. I checked all my other library sources – and every copy/version of it elsewhere had a long list of holds. And since my library allows a book to be checked out for three weeks, there was no way that I’d be able to return it, get it back, and finish it in time.
So I kept it. And I’ve felt incredibly guilty ever since.
‘Ever since’ meaning the whole day and a half I held it after it was due (not to mention some pre-guilt in the days leading up to the due date knowing I would have to hold on to it). This is how my mind works – thinking of that poor reader believing they were about to receive the book they were excited to read only to see it hadn’t been returned on time. Which has happened to me a couple times when I was waiting for a book club book, and they kept it so long that I couldn’t get it in time to read it.
Which is why I spent every waking free moment since I saw I couldn’t renew it again reading, trying to finish it as fast as possible. Which is why I spent the entire day yesterday reading to finish it. My poor eyeballs, y’all.
So now I’m off to return the book, pay my fifty cents in late fees, and send my apology into the ether to the reader who is waiting for it.
Description: A story told in three time periods that braid together around a central figure – a record-breaking thoroughbred horse named Lexington (who was a real horse). Each chapter starts off with a title and a year so that the reader knows exactly where they are in time and whose head they will be inside: in the 1850s with enslaved groom and trainer Jarret (who works with the horse starting from the day the foal is born); 1954 with gallery owner Martha Jackson who has a painting of Lexington fall into her lap, which sets her off on the trail of discovering everything she can about this horse; and in 2019 with either Jess, a scientist with the Smithsonian, or Theo, an art historian – whose paths cross as they, too, work to learn more about this mysterious horse (Jess through his bones; Theo through finding a painting his neighbor was throwing out).
Why I recommend this book:
First, the writing is incredible. (I mean, Brooks has a Pulitzer, so no shock there.) Also, the historical aspects are so well-written – she puts you right there in that time in such a beautiful way. She doesn’t shy away from the realities of the 1850s, which considering one of the narrators is an enslaved person was important. She allows for the realities while also allowing Jarret to have his authentic reaction. (There are a few instances in the present day chapters where the conversation about racism feels a bit forced. They are still necessary, but they didn’t feel as seamless as in Jarret’s chapters.)
I also love the idea of Brooks learning about this horse and needing to write a story about it – just in the way all her characters learn about this horse and find a similar need to know more. The idea of something unexpected connecting people across time is so lovely.
Something missing?
Not really anything missing, just a couple things that bugged me. One is that after Darley and Jarret are sold, the new owners rename the horse to Lexington – and in the exposition, Brooks began referring to him this way, even in Jarret’s POV, who still calls him Darley (at least initially). As the narrative continues, she goes back and forth with it. As someone who cheered on Jarret and Darley together, I wished she had stuck to this name at least in Jarret’s POV.
Another thing was that some chapters would switch perspective. For example, we might be in Jess’s chapter, but we get Theo’s thoughts at times. It took me out of the story for a moment because we had spent so many chapters strict to the perspective – so it would trip me up when I’d realize that was someone else’s thought, and I would need to skip back a couple sentences and reread.
The biggest bug would be a spoiler – but there is an event in the Theo/Jess timeline near the end that feels unnecessary – like she was trying to drive home a very specific point rather than serve what had been the natural arc of the story. You’ll know what I mean the second you get to it. It felt too much like the author trying to drive home a point. (That all being said, I still fully recommend the book.)
(Honestly, I would have taken an entire book focused only on Jarret’s story/time period.)
“I will not trade my horse for any that walks on four legs. When I sit astride him I soar, I am a hawk. He trots on air. The earth sings when he touches it.” ― Geraldine Brooks,Horse
Full disclosure, I don’t listen to the radio. I used to, when I didn’t really have a choice (I mean, the first ipod shuffle didn’t come out until 2005 – and even then, it was a few years and iterations before I owned one; I had a Walkman and then a portable CD player while growing up, but batteries didn’t grow on trees, y’know?). But now that I do have a choice, I just prefer not to. (In my car, it’s podcast time. At home, crank the showtunes or put on a record. And yes, that often means an actual record. On vinyl.)
I also don’t love the radio because they seem to play the same ten songs over and over and over. While I can listen to my fav song on repeat like the best of ’em, I want that choice/control.
Because of this, it can sometimes be tricky finding new artists to listen to. So I love when my bestie will say – I heard this new song, and I think you’d like it. She’s usually right.
Aug 13, 2015 – Waterfest, Oshkosh
One time, this occurred almost a decade ago. She was editing a video and looking for a song to play with it, and she had stumbled across “Honey I’m Good” by Andy Grammer while diving down the music rabbit hole. She sent me a link, and I did enjoy it. We’ve since seem him a handful of times whenever he tours nearby, and I have to say – this is where he shines. (The first time we saw him was at Waterfest in Oshkosh, WI – it might have been his first tour? He was just starting out, and he had a VIP meet and greet where he sang a few acoustic songs and then said hello and signed things.)
I’m sure I’ve said on this blog a few times now that I have a dad who was a musician in the ’60s and who raised my sister and me to appreciate live music. I think Grammer is a great example of why. Watching artists create is my favorite thing because of the joy – and the thing about an Andy Grammer show is that every single person on that stage is BURSTING with joy, clearly loving what they are doing. Even if you’re not a fan of his music, you would be hard pressed not to be moved by the performance.
As he’s become more successful, his shows have grown over the years, and after a recent one, my bestie and I noted how much more produced it had become (more lights and tricks and whatnot). The joy was still there, but as folks who like laid back shows in preferably small venues, we have a harder time engaging when things get large/overly produced. We still had a great time, but we missed the feel of those earlier shows.
So when Grammer announced his latest tour would be a one-man show, yes please.
This was not a traditional show where Grammer played song after song for a scheduled amount of time. This was…different. There were songs, of course (he played acoustic guitar, and he had a gentleman playing electric that sat in the background), but there was also spoken-word poetry and stories. Oh, there were stories. Which is my favorite part of a live show – sometimes even more than them playing the songs they are telling the stories about.
The through line here was grief and service. Near the start of the show, he quoted someone (whose name I didn’t catch and who I can’t find online) who said (and I’m summarizing here because I didn’t write it down) how deeds done in the names of those we’ve lost become presents to them in the afterlife. This started off the show with a series of examples where after losing his mother, he opened himself to deeds of service by way of writing songs for people who needed them (not in a money sense, but in an emotional/soul sense). He sang a few of them after he told the stories, imagining that these deeds were arriving at his mother’s door through Amazon’s Heaven division (note: you don’t need to religious to get something out of his shows or music; his faith is a large part of who he is, but he doesn’t make others feel excluded because of it).
The show continued on, and there was even some audience participation. Before the show, he had everyone in the audience fill out these cards that had three prompts on them – someone you lost who you miss, an act of service you had recently done, and the name of someone who saved your life. The ushers collected these right before the show, and when Grammer came onto the stage, he was holding a large box of them. At three times during the show, he grabbed a handful of cards from the box. He started with the third prompt – he’d call out the name and invited the audience member to tell the story of how this person saved their life (it was optional, but everyone took him up on it). The second time, he merely read a number of acts of service to help inspire people to act. The last time he did this, he read off the person they missed. He called them up and offered four prompts – they had to finish the sentence. “I feel you would be most proud of me for…” “I feel your presence most when…” (and two more that I can’t remember off the top of my head).
Here’s the trick to it. Not everyone was called up, of course. but when he was listing off those prompts, you know everyone in the audience was answering them silently to themselves. At the end, he answered his own prompts about his mother, who he lost in 2009.
I spent my entire life with no idea that the city of Madison was home to a 1,200 acre arboretum (with an addition 513 acres in outlying properties). It shouldn’t surprise me, given most cities have large parks and my own UW campus houses an arboretum, as well. I’d just never stumbled upon it – and you’d think 1,200 acres would be hard to miss.
But then my friend started working there, and little by little, he taught me about it. Like how the goal, from the beginning, has been to re-establish historical Wisconsin landscapes and offer a refuge from the city. Or how there is a species of cactus that is native to Wisconsin (whaaaat?). And when I checked to see if he was around because I was coming to the city, he asked about my reason for heading his way, and I quietly noted that I was coming to Madison for research for my murder mystery WIP and was looking for places to ‘drop bodies’ – he taught me about the Lost City Forest. (Um, the what now?)
The Lake Forest Community of the 1920s promised a neighborhood equipped with a thousand lots, street-car service, playgrounds, utilities, and a school – but the land had other ideas. Building began, and then began to sink. The plan was abandoned, and some of the land became part of the arboretum – who left the city alone. Nature’s gonna Nature, after all.
Today, the remains of this idea are known as the Lost City Forest. Walk along the paths, and you can see cracked foundations beneath the dirt and leaves. There are still glass bottles and rusted utensils strewn about some of the remains. But trees have long since grown back, and moss covers just about everything in sight.
He was right – this would be an excellent spot to drop a fictional body.
If you’ve read past posts about my books, then you will know how much thought and time I put into naming my characters. I like the names to mean something – to tell a little bit more about the person they’re given to.
When I started writing my murder mystery, I decided to take a bit of a different route – this time paying homage to my favorite characters on the many detective procedurals that I’ve watched over the years. And re-watched. Often. Aside from the friends who did the Kickstarter ‘add on’ to have a character named after them in this story, all characters pay tribute to these favs.
My main character is Alia Maselli, nicknamed Moz by her younger sister. While her given name isn’t an homage, her nickname is – in honor of the great Willie Garson who played Mozzie on White Collar. He is, easily, one of my favorite characters across all forms of storytelling. He is smart, loyal, and quirky. And I can’t imagine anyone else in that role. (A number of smaller character names also come from this show, thanks to the plethora of aliases that Neal has.)
Moz’s partner is Jane Acierno – a play on Jane Rizzoli, my favorite badass detective from Rizzoli &Isles. She’s both feminine and vulnerable, but can also kick butt and take names. It’s those moments when her soft side breaks through that I enjoy the most because it demonstrates how complex she really is. So when it came time to ‘casting’ Moz’s partner, it was a no-brainer. (In addition, my friend Brady’s character is modeled after Vince Korsack, who was Jane’s original partner on the show who retires and buys the bar they all hang out at.)
Ella Wolfe is named for Ella Lopez on Lucifer. She’s another of those characters that contains contradictions, which I love. She is both lightness and darkness. She is bright and bubbly, but she’s got a past that becomes present in the most inopportune times. In the story, my Ella is also a Forensics Tech and helps on a number of the cases that Moz works on. (And no, I don’t have a devil in this story. No magic realism this time around.)
Lt. Sean Jokala’s name honors two people. The first is Sean Murray, who plays my fav NCIS character, Tim McGee (he’s a bit nerdy and always trying to do his best). The second is Lt. Jokala, from the Madison police department (who was kind enough to answer some questions related to police work in the Madison district). (I also borrowed a bit of David McCallum’s Ducky for my own ME.)
In addition to taking an Introduction to Investigation course at the college where I teach, I’ve studied at the feet of so many of these shows (plus Bones and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and others that I’m unable to think of in the moment). I suppose it was only a matter of time before I created my own story. 🙂
I’ll be honest – when I first started writing novel-length stories, genre was the furthest thing from my mind. I just knew I had stories I wanted to tell. So I just wrestled them onto the page.
But then I started querying and publishing. And suddenly, I had to put my stories into tidy little boxes. ＞﹏＜
The first, All Falling Things, was an easy one – Women’s Fiction. As was Goode vs Melville with its low fantasy/sci-fi storyline (that was the third manuscript – and, for the first time, I knew it going in).
But Wherever Would I Be proved tricky. It’s listed as YA, though New Adult would be a better fit (if that ever gets off the ground). But beyond that, I wasn’t sure where to put it. Fantasy felt too strong of a word – even with the added ‘low’ qualifier. While I’ve read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy in my life, I never realized just how many subgenres existed under that particular umbrella. It was a deep dive, folks.
I think part of the issue is that I read so widely and write almost as widely. When folks ask me what I like to read, I generally say everything but horror. (No offense to horror writers or readers – I just have too active an imagination that likes to come alive at night. >_< ) I gravitate to the story more so than the genre, so I rarely worry about the ‘label’.
Eventually, I landed on magic realism (which was my introduction to the fact that this was a genre, and that I had read quite a few such books in my time).
And then Shepherd reached out about my creating a top five list that share a theme with me own book.
Little by little, I’ve learned that in the chaos of my reading list, there are specific stories that I do tend to gravitate to. In grad school, I learned that I prefer character-driven over plot-driven (though I will read both – I just like seeing a story develop because of how a character evolves, especially in my own writing). A few years ago, I learned that ‘quiet’ stories are a thing – and that is definitely my jam (again, especially in my own writing). But beyond that, I couldn’t figure out what sort of theme would fit my book with others that I enjoy. Until it FINALLY clicked – finding family (which I define broadly – I don’t mean literally finding people they’re related to – it can be creating a family when your bio one is absent).
Sometimes, one’s interests are more narrow than they may seem initially. 🙂
Description: The 1990s is a decade that is hard to define, and reading this book will remind anyone who lived through them just how much we lived through. “In The Nineties, Klosterman dissects the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the pre-9/11 politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan, and (almost) everything else.” And he does it all with a bit of humor and a masterful synthetization.
Why I recommend this book:
First, if you lived through this era, it’s quite the romp down memory lane. There were so many things I had forgotten about – and some I didn’t know. Other pieces (like music and the course set by the creation of Napster) just went deeper than I had originally understood them. It’s also a great read for anyone who wishes to learn about this decade but isn’t interested in the content being delivered like a textbook – the writing is, overall, engaging and easy to consume. Last, it will keep the reader on their toes. As Paul Markowich from The National Book Review notes, “The Nineties is a mind-bending trip that never signals where it is going next. Klosterman will make an incredibly insightful philosophical or sociological comment immediately followed by a discussion of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’.”
Something missing?
Something that is missing is a more generalized perspective. As Nik Dirga notes, Klosterman states that “[i]t was, in retrospect, a remarkably easy time to be alive” – but Dirga continues by adding “[w]hich is only really true if you came….from pretty comfortable white middle class American existences.” (Klosterman’s first footnote does point out his shifting perspective of class from upper-lower to middle-middle to lower-upper through his lifetime.) We also don’t get a clear idea how he defines this decade, aside from it being the decade prior to a whole lot of change. (This was a time when the internet was around, but it hadn’t really sunk its teeth into our society. The way we thought and felt and lived in the ’90s is a far cry from life today – so he wasn’t wrong about that.) If you are looking to come away with the “answer” of what the ’90s really were, this isn’t the book for you.
However, if you are looking to reminisce and continued the conversation with some amusing ideas and thought-provoking concepts, then definitely give this a go. As Laura Miller from Slateputs it, “It’s an eccentric buffet, from which you are free to savor what appeals to you most, and if you aren’t served what you were looking for, well then you’ve come to the wrong kitchen.”
“Part of the complexity of living through history is the process of explaining things about the pas that you never explained to yourself. So many temporary realties, distantly viewed in the rearview mirror, will appear ridiculous to any person who wasn’t there.” ~ Chuck Klosterman
There are so many writers out there who are adamant that a writer must do this or a writer must do that. That someone isn’t a writer unless they XYZ. The most common one I hear is that to be a writer, you must write every day.
When I hear things like that, I can’t help but think – no wonder some writers hate writing.
Dorothy Parker once said, “I hate writing. I love having written.”
One writer on Medium said, “It’s the burden of being a writer, not wanting to write.” They go on to say that writing can be boring.
Flannery O’Connor said, “Writing [a novel] is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”
I never really understood this mentality. I never had the “I don’t want to do this” whenever I sat down to write, certainly not the “I hate this” – mostly because I was so thrilled at having been able to carve out any time to do so. I look forward to every Friday when I take the entire day to focus on my WIP.
This idea of “I hate writing. I love having written.” is so common that people make jokes about those who say they do love writing. In a recent podcast interview with Bill Lawrence, he went so far as to joke that “when someone says ‘I love writing,’ keep an eye on them because they might be a sociopath. … I don’t mean to stare at them all the time, but just corner of your eye.”
I do understand that I am talking about a specific type of writing/writer here (and a specific point in the process), and that I don’t write under deadlines – and each of these things can change someone’s relationship to their work. But maybe, just maybe, someone can actually love the act of writing. Someone like me.
Elisa Doucette on Mediumsays, “Writing is hard. Hitting deadlines is hard. Coming up with ideas and attempting to share them in any sort of cohesive and competent manner is hard. Sitting your ass in a chair to vomit up the shittiest first draft you’ve ever written, until the next shitty first draft you’ll have to write, is hard.”
At the start of every semester, I talk with my students about writing anxiety and other attitudes we may have toward writing. On the composition side of things, these students didn’t choose to take the class. Most have no interest in writing academic essays. At least on the creative writing side of things, they chose to take the course. Though that doesn’t always mean that they are in the mood to write what needs to be written.
The first lecture I give in both types of classes is about how writing is a process – and that the most important thing we can do is figure out what process works best for ourselves. Some folks love outlines. Others prefer visual maps or freewriting. While pantsing (the act of just drafting and seeing what comes up as they write) can work in a creative assignment, an academic essay requires planning. If they can figure out a process that works for them, then the anxiety and moodiness will minimize.
So what is the process? Planning. Organizing. Drafting. Revising. Editing.
These can all look different to everyone. Planning can be as simple as a spark of an idea or as complex as creating detailed character backgrounds and ‘set design.’ Some folks (pansters) may skip over planning and organizing, while others (planners) will come up with an outline – which can be of varying levels of detail. Some stick strictly to their outlines while others allow themselves to open it as they draft. The whole point is to try out things until you find what works best for you. And ignore what everyone else tells you that you HAVE to do in order to be a writer. (And no, you don’t have to publish to be a writer. That doesn’t have to be your end goal, either.)
A fiction student once sat in my office upset because they had read that Stephen King said that any book you can’t write in three months isn’t worth writing. She had been working on hers for a couple years already. I pointed out that this was his process, and also that he gets to work as a writer full time – he’s not having to work a different job to pay the bills or go to school full time. All he has to do is write, and he’s found a process (and a genre) that allows him to complete an entire manuscript in three months. That doesn’t mean that needs to be true for every other writer.
Whenever another writer tells me that I should be writing every single day, I bristle – and then I point out that I don’t have time in my schedule for that. The response is usually – but you can find at least fifteen minutes a day! Sure. But it takes me more than fifteen minutes to get into writing mode. I’m a tunnel-vision kind of worker. I create my schedule in days – not hours or minutes. One day is for grading a particular class. Another is for housework. Fridays are for writing. Because this is what works best for me.
My whole point here is to say – go ahead and hear what other writers have to say and try it out. If it works for you, then great – keep it. If it doesn’t, then don’t – it’s not a failure on your part if it doesn’t work for you.
I’m the sort of organizational geek that has themes to the rooms of her house regarding what is hanging on the walls. My living room, for example, is “the Ashley room” – all art by my dear friend Ashley Megal that I’ve collected over the years.
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to make my office the ‘travel’ room. So far, I only have a collage frame up of some travel photos, and for a long time, I’ve wanted to find something I could hang up that could track my travels. I’ve spent more time than I should have considering all my options (like random rabbit holes several times over many years). Well, I finally made the choice – and let me say, there is nothing like realizing just how little of the world you’ve actually seen by creating a visual of where you’ve been:
For the first eighteen years of my life, my world consisted of northeastern Illinois and northeastern Wisconsin, plus one side quest to Minnesota when I was thirteen. I didn’t start really traveling until I was in college and joined the UWGB chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Every winter and spring break, the chapter took a collegiate challenge trip where they paired up with a chapter elsewhere in the country and spent the week working on a house. During my time in college, I went on six of these trips, finally getting to see various parts of the country – and I got bit hard by the travel bug (of course, I was a broke college student who didn’t own a car, and these trips were the only way I could see anything at all). Then, after college, my residence life friends took jobs all over the country, and I got to mark off other states by visiting them (because I finally had a car and could spare an occasional plane ticket). Add in some road trips and conferences, and I’ve managed to so far mark off thirty states, with a goal to see all fifty.
There are some rules, though – I have to do something of significance in that state for it to count. So while I’ve slept overnight in Colorado (on the way to the Arizona HFH trip) and driven through Ohio several times, those remain unmarked. I had hoped to mark off a few more with my Route 66 trip before I had to turn back (literally made it two miles to the border of a new state to mark…). Hoping to still mark off a couple more later this year. *fingers crossed*
My first trip out of the country happened in 2014 when I got to go to Kenya (thankfully with some help from my work’s International Education Committee!). Over the next few years, I managed to also visit Colombia (to visit a friend in the Peace Corps), Costa Rica (I got to be the assistant director of the study abroad through work), and China (I got to participate in a professional exchange, again through work – legit never thought teaching would afford me so many chances to see parts of the world). It’s hard to believe my last time out of the states was already six years ago (where has the time gone?) when my bestie and I road tripped around Scotland. The pandemic delayed making any new plans, but now I’ve got a renewed passport and an itch to see something new.
I’m sure there are people out there with the aim to visit every country, but I am realistic enough to know that’s not feasible for me (lack of independent wealth and all that), but at a minimum, I would like to touch down on every continent (two more to go) and countries I have ancestral connections to – Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Poland, France, and Norway (plus a couple others if I go further back, like Sweden, Belgium, and, WAY back – like the first century way back, to Finland – which, I also acknowledge the extreme privilege I have to be able to trace my ancestry anywhere, let alone a couple thousand years).
When I was a kid, I remember how any time my papa (material grandfather) returned from a trip, he would have a stack of photos from his adventure. I loved flipping through them with him and hearing all his stories (he is still, to this day, my favorite storyteller). Whenever his adventure involved a plane, the stack would include a number of cloud photos – he loved taking pictures of the clouds. Didn’t matter if he had already taken hundreds from other trips, he always took more.
This became a bit of a tradition for myself, as well. Every time I am up in the air, I cannot resist taking photos of the clouds. It doesn’t matter that Papa isn’t around anymore for me to share them with him, I still take them. Aside from loving the textures and the feeling of absolute freedom I feel way up there, it makes me feel a little bit closer to him still.
Ami Maxine 