Tag Archives: Books

15 Things Book-Lovers Do Better Than Anyone Else

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In some ways, book-lovers are just like ordinary people. We do things like talk and walk around and eat bread. But hang around a true book-lover for long enough, and you’ll start to notice a few key differences. For example, where a normal pedestrian might spend their money on rent or food, a book-lover prefers to live in a large cardboard box surround entirely by hardcovers. Book-lovers will frequently claim to be “bummed” that they can’t make it to your boyfriend’s cover band competition, when in fact they are quite content to stay home and read. There are also a few hidden talents that all book-lovers possess, so here are several things that book-lovers do better than anyone else.

Of course, book-lovers tend to keep their secret superpowers pretty quiet most of the time. We’re not going around bragging about our ability to find 99p paperbacks within a five mile radius of any given location. We’re not trying to make other people feel bad, just because we’re better at eating spaghetti while reading without getting sauce on the pages. And we’d definitely never let anyone know how good we at rereading the same book over and over again without ever getting bored.

But just in case you need a reminder, here are a few things that book-lovers do better:

1. Notice every change between book and movie

Even if we like the film adaptation, most book-lovers take intense mental (or literal) notes on every scene, character, and line of dialogue that’s different. We might forget birthdays and keys, but we remember every Ron line that was inexplicably given to Hermione in the movie. Same goes for TV shows. Don’t watch Game of Thrones with me unless you want to hear my lengthy feelings about the changes to the Dorne plot line.

2. Pull all-nighters

If the book is good enough, book-lovers have the ability to go for long periods of time without food, sleep, or social interaction. All we need is a flashlight and a novel, and we’re happy until dawn. We might not be great at showing up to work on time the next morning, but we don’t let a little thing like sleep deprivation get in the way of reading.

3. Concentrate while on the train/bus/airplane

So what if we miss a stop every once in a while? Book-lovers are excellent at shutting out the so-called “real world.” We might prefer peace and quiet, but in a pinch we can read just about anywhere (which also makes us excellent at avoiding eye contact with strangers).

4. Keep a well-loved book together by sheer force of willpower

What some people consider a loose pile of pages, we consider a beloved member of the family. Some book-lovers are more precious with their books than others, but all book-lovers are naturally gifted at nursing damaged and “well-loved” books through multiple re-reads. Tape is a book-lover’s best friend.

5. Daydream

Even when book-lovers aren’t actively reading, we have some pretty finely-tuned imaginations. It’s hard to read a lot without becoming a thoughtful, creative person in the process. Especially for fiction junkies, all that literature gives your mind the fuel it needs to stare dreamily out the window on a rainy day, or to spend a calculus lecture thinking deeply about being married to Mr. Darcy.

6. Follow two (or five) plots at once

Some book-lovers are strictly one-book-at-a-time readers… but most of us have developed a talent for jumping from plot to plot without skipping a beat. We’ve go our ongoing re-reads, our book club reads, our new releases in hardcover, and our pocket sized paperbacks, for when you don’t want to carry a big bag. And we can tell you exactly what’s going on in all of them.

7. Balance books in weird positions

Of course, book-lovers prefer to read in a cozy chair or on a picturesque park bench under a cherry tree. But we make do. We’re all excellent at balancing books while eating, cooking, exercising, brushing our teeth, and doing all those other inconvenient things we frequently have to do when we’re right in the middle of a great chapter.

8. Apply literature to life

Sometimes it’s frustrating to be a book-lover. You just want to explain how Shakespeare, or George R.R. Martin, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie perfectly encapsulates all of your feelings about a particular political issue, but other people don’t seem to get it. That’s OK, book-lovers. Your ability to see how literature reflects real life and visa versa is actually a skill, and you’re not nuts to think that books might help you better understand the real world. Fiction does make you more empathetic, after all.

9. Find the perfect reading spot

Readers just have sixth sense for finding cozy reading spots. Everywhere we go, we’re low-key checking out coffee shops, parks, and window seats for maximum reading coziness. Add a cup of tea and a purring cat, and we have engineered peak reading comfort.

10. Walk and read

Walking and reading is an activity that should only be attempted by veteran book-lovers. But for those elite few, walking and reading is as natural as walking and talking. Just make sure you look both ways at the crossroad, if you’re planning to try this one at home.

11. Write

Not every book-lover has to be an aspiring author themselves. But most readers just tend to be better writers: whether it’s writing a story, a blog, or a text message, readers have an innate sense of language, imagery, and where to put commas.

12. Fall madly in love with fictional characters

OK, so this one may not be a talent per say… but book-lovers most certainly do it better than anyone else. Literary crushes are intoxicating, because the reader has total control over imagining what their dream date looks like, how they wear their hair, how they smell, and so on. Step aside, people crushing on TV characters.

13. Budget for maximum book purchasing

Look, we go to the library. We borrow books from our friends. We prowl the used bookstore. But sometimes you just need to shell out for a new release, and that’s where book-lovers become budgeting experts. We’ll gladly sacrifice eating out, fancy cocktails, and possibly electricity if we can get our hands on that shiny new hardcover.

14. Find creative book storage solutions

Those shelves fill up quickly, man. And then we’ve got to get creative. Any book-lover knows the struggle of trying to fit an infinite number of books into a finite amount of space. Luckily, most of us are brilliant when it comes to stashing books under the bed, in the unused oven, and behind the books that are already on the shelf (double-shelving, anyone?).

15. Read

Well, duh. But some book-lovers don’t realize just how good they are at reading. Reading is a skill. Understanding what you read, rather than just skimming, is an art. Not everyone is good at translating squiggles on a page into thrilling adventures and sweeping romance. A book is really only as good as the reader’s imagination, and book-lovers are pretty great when it comes to imagining.

Via: https://www.bustle.com/p/15-things-book-lovers-do-better-than-anyone-else

7 Books That Are More Feminist Than You’d Think

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Reading while also being a feminist can be a demoralising endeavor. It feels like for every brilliant piece of feminist writing, there’s an unassailable mountain of misogynistic nonsense (I’m looking at you, Ernest Hemingway). So much of what we read in secondary school literature, for example, is written by white men, about white men, and for white men, and it starts to get exhausting. Can we only read books of essays on feminist theory for the rest of time? Are any other books safe? Well, these books might not change your entire gender-based worldview, but they certainly all have feminist messages buried in there somewhere. Here are a few books that turn out to be more feminist than you’d think.

I mean sure, we can all enjoy the occasional story about hunting lions in Africa with your shrewish wife, but over half of the planet’s population is made up of genders other than men. It’s tempting to give up on male authors entirely and go live underground and/or only read Ella Enchanted on repeat for the rest of your life. But if that’s sounding a little unrealistic, here are a few books that have more to say on women’s rights than you might have guessed:

1. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare

Sappy romance between hormonal teens…or secret feminist manifesto? Romeo and Juliet has quite the reputation for being a classic love story, but the way it deals with gender is very nearly revolutionary. Despite being a teen boy, Romeo is the emotional, romantic, sensitive character, who kills himself using poison, which is traditionally a “woman’s weapon.” Juliet, on the other hand, is a thoughtful, logical teenage girl, who has a whole monologue about how excited she is to have sex with her boyfriend, and who stabs herself to death in a very traditionally masculine form of violence.

2. ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce

Yes, James Joyce writes a lot about dudes staring at women and yes, a lot of his fans are lit bros who’ll make you read their screenplay and then ghost you. But if you can make it through Ulysses, you just might find that Joyce is more complex than that. The book is all about Leopold Bloom, but Molly Bloom, his wife, gets the final chapter all to herself. The last few pages are a stream of consciousness monologue from Molly as she masturbates, and it’s presented as a beautiful, empowering, life-affirming event (that got the book repeatedly banned for obscenity).

3. ‘The Suffragette Scandal’ by Courtney Milan

A lot of people write off the romance genre as trashy or backwards, but there are many well-written feminist love stories out there. The Suffragette Scandal, for one, is a nuanced and sexy romance between an outspoken suffragette and a man who actually appreciates her for her wit, tenacity, and bold opinions.

4. ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Like most classic folklore collections, the original One Thousand and One Nights isn’t exactly up to date on gender politics. But Hanan Al-Shaykh’s beautiful, witty re-telling of these stories manages to highlight complex women throughout. The stories are equally funny and gruesome, and at the center of all of them is young Shahrazad, spinning tales to save her life, and to protect other women from the king’s wrath.

5. ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen

People seem to be split on Jane Austen: either they think she’s a brilliant proto-feminist, or they dismiss her books as classic chick lit. Those “chick lit” people need to take a long hard look in the mirror and then read Persuasion. It may not have as much of a feminist following as Pride and Prejudice, but Persuasion is the most mature of Austen’s novels: the story of an old-ish young woman looking for a second chance with a man she once spurned. But more than that, our heroine is forced to deal with the existential question of her own place in society as a woman who never married (she’s a dried up old maid of 27!).

6. ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ by Lemony Snicket

I don’t know that anyone would call Lemony Snicket’s darkly humorous children’s series sexist, but it’s certainly not the book that comes to mind first in a discussion of feminist kids’ books. That’s too bad, because the Baudelaire siblings eschew traditional gender roles and deal with a lot of sexist creeps. Violet, the mechanically minded inventor, is a great example of a young women who can enjoy hair ribbons and machinery.

7. ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë

When it comes to the Brontës and feminism, Jane Eyre gets most of the attention. After all, Jane Eyre is very clearly the story of one woman growing into her own independence, while Wuthering Heights is… more of a story about two awful people who love/hate each other until they angrily die. But, I’d argue that Wuthering Heights is important in part because it has an unlikable female protagonist. So many great books star antihero men, so why can’t Cathy be an antihero woman? Wuthering Heights challenges us to invest in the story of a young woman who is not particularly pleasant or nice, but who is still a fully realised individual with passions and thoughts.

Via: https://www.bustle.com/p/7-books-that-are-more-feminist-than-you-think

18 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: July 2017

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Every month, the Writer’s Bone crew reviews or previews books they’ve read or want to read. This series may or may not also serve as a confessional for guilty pleasures and hipster novels only the brave would attempt. Here are their recommendations for July 2017:

  1. Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
  2. What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
  3. The Fallen by Ace Atkins
  4. Madame Zero by Sarah Hall
  5. Grunt by Mary Roach
  6. The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff
  7. Unsub by Meg Gardiner
  8. The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins
  9. Found Audio by N.J. Campbell
  10. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  11. The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt
  12. Joe Gould’s Teeth by Jill Lepore
  13. St. Marks is Dead by Ada Calhoun
  14. The Songs by Charles Elton
  15. The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick
  16. Blind Spot by Teju Cole
  17. Sweat by Lynn Nottage
  18. Borne by Jeff Vandermeer

Click on the links above for a detailed synopsis of each book, or follow the following link to see what the Writer’s Bone crew had to say: Books-that-should-be-on-your-radar-July-2017

15 Books With Plot Twists You Never Saw Coming

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plot twists you never saw coming

If you participated in Mystery & Thriller Week on Goodreads earlier this year, then you probably used the opportunity to crack open at least a few of those mind-bending, spine-tingling reads in your TBR pile. But with the week only running May 1 through May 7 (due to the fact that, you know, weeks are only seven days long) you may not have had quite enough time to get your fill of creepy, shocking, heart-pounding books with plot twists you never saw coming. (I barely made a dent in my own TBR pile, TBH.)

The good news is, you don’t have to stop reading great thrillers just because the Goodreads’ Mystery & Thriller Week is over. If you’re the kind of bookworm who loves her shelves stacked high with one shocking plot twist after another, then maybe every week is Mystery & Thriller Week in your reading life. Or maybe you used the opportunity to spark a new love of mysteries and thrillers — in which case you’re probably going to need some book recommendations, am I right? From classics like Henry James to contemporaries like Paula Hawkins, there are plenty of thrillers on this list that’ll shake up your reading life. And, if you like your plot twists a little less terrifying, there are also a few non-thrillers that will leave you just as floored.

Here are 15 novels with plot twists you never saw coming:

1. ‘Big Little Lies’ by Liane Moriarty

Even if you missed the HBO mini-series Big Little Lies, it’s not too late to check out Liane Moriarty’s New York Times bestselling novel from which the show was adapted. (And even if you did, there are some big differences between the novel and the show that are definitely worth checking out.) For those who don’t know, Big Little Lies tells the story of a group of mothers who are all wrestling different demons — some psychological, others pulled directly from the real world, and a few that fall under both categories, and they’re not always honest about it; often lying to each other and themselves. Somehow this novel will manage to both amuse and disturb you, often on the very same page. And it will definitely surprise you.

2. ‘Everything, Everything’ by Nicola Yoon

Another New York Times bestseller, this YA novel will surprise — and maybe even infuriate you — with its ending. (And if you haven’t seen the film yet, definitely read the book first.) Everything, Everything introduces readers to 17-year-old Madeline, a girl who has never left her house. She is, as she describes, allergic to the whole world. But when the tall, dark, and handsome teen Olly moves into next door, Madeline finally discovers something — or rather someone — she is willing to risk stepping outside for. But not everyone is going to be happy about it.

3. ‘Water for Elephants’ by Sara Gruen

Don’t let the performance of the circus distract you — Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants has some surprising twists you’ll want to watch out for. In this Depression-era novel, penniless college drop out Jacob Jankowski hops a freight train in the middle of the night, and joins the circus; the Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, to be exact. But the most spectacular show on earth isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be, and behind the scenes things like sex and alcohol, violence and betrayal abound. And, everyone isn’t who they seem to be — or, at least, they’re not who they are for the reasons you might expect.

4. ‘People Who Knew Me’ by Kim Hooper

On September 11, 2001, Emily Morris’s entire life is transformed — pregnant and prepared to leave her husband for the man she’s been having an affair with, Emily instead uses the national disaster to take on a new identity, leaving New York City and the mistakes she made there behind. Fast forward 13 years, and Emily is raising a teenage daughter and battling a terminal illness — one that leaves her wondering if she can re-imagine her life, and more importantly the life of her 13-year-old daughter, once more. Maybe other readers predicted the ending of People Who Knew Me, but I definitely didn’t.

5. ‘Into the Water’ by Paula Hawkins

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. Into the Water is filled with more twists and turns than any book I’ve recently read — and once you think you’re starting to figure it out, author Paula Hawkins will surprise you again. This novel, from the bestselling author of The Girl on the Train, takes readers to a small, storied town, where a teenage girl and a single mother are found drowned in the nearby river — a river that has seen a disturbing number of drownings of women before. Suddenly, long-buried local mysteries rise to the surface, and there are a few people in the community who can’t let that happen.

6. ‘The Queen of the Night’ by Alexander Chee

A lengthy read, Alexander Chee’s The Queen of the Night is not, IMO, a book to be missed. Blending historical fiction with a mystery thriller, The Queen of the Night takes readers back to the historic Paris Opera, where the legendary soprano Lilliet Berne has just been given the role of a lifetime — one that will define her legacy in the opera forever. But as she begins to perform her part, she realizes the opera is based on a dark and secret part of her own past, which, if revealed, could certainly ruin her life. The thing that terrifies Lilliet even more than the opera itself is who could have committed her secrets to performance in the first place — and that’s the question that will keep you guessing as well.

7. ‘The Turn of the Screw’ by Henry James

Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is a classic Gothic horror, telling the story of a governess who moves into an English estate to care for two children, only to have her sanity compromised by supernatural happenings and evil phantoms — phantoms that her two charges already seem eerily well familiar with. Or, was the well-meaning governess insane to begin with? If you haven’t read this classic yet, definitely check it out.

8. ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn

The way I see it, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl did (at least) two important things for the thriller genre: it made thrillers appealing for people who never read thrillers, and it turned the violent male/victimized female formula of the genre entirely on its head. And I’m glad for that. If you haven’t read this one yet, you should. When Nick Dunne’s wife Amy disappears before their fifth wedding anniversary, suspicion immediately falls on Nick — who, let’s face it, isn’t awesome. And his lies make him look even worse. But the plot twist Flynn has in store might actually make you shout out loud from surprise, or throw the book across the room. Really.

9. ‘Waking Lions’ by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Set in the novelist’s native Israel, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s Waking Lions begins with a murder — the hit-and-run of an undocumented Eritrean immigrant by Israeli doctor Eitan Green. Eitan, speeding down a rural road late at night, slams into Asum and after a quick inspection of the immigrant’s body, decides to flee the scene. Except he’s left some evidence behind — evidence that Asum’s wife, Sirkit, will use to blackmail the doctor into operating a free, nighttime health clinic for Israel’s undocumented immigrants and refugees. In Waking Lions, the bad guys are the good guys, the victims are the perpetrators, and the ending is definitely not what you’ll expect.

10. ‘The Circle’ by Dave Eggers

Man has always had a complicated relationship with machines — but that relationship is getting a whole lot creepier of late. Written like 1984-meets-The Fountainhead for the social media generation, Dave Eggers’ The Circle will take you behind the scenes of one of the world’s most powerful tech companies — one that monitors your every move, where secrets, privacy, and unplugging are automatically suspect. What’s so shocking about The Circle isn’t the ending (with its strong echoes of Winston and Julia) but rather how familiar some of the disturbing happenings in The Circle will start to sound.

11. ‘Second Life’ by S.J. Watson

Another novel that will make you re-think your relationship with the internet forever, S.J. Watson’s psychological thriller, Second Life, tells the story of a fairly unremarkable wife and mother whose entire life is turned upside-down after her sister is murdered. According to Julia, the police aren’t doing everything to find Kate’s killer, and so she takes matters into her own hands. Suddenly, Julia finds herself immersed in her sister’s secret world of online dating and cybersex, and quickly begins to succumb to a hidden, and potentially deadly, digital “second” life of her own.

12. ‘The Westing Game’ by Ellen Raskin

Featuring a surprising plot for a YA/Middle Grade novel, Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game just might have been your very first mystery thriller. In The Westing Game, sixteen characters are thrown together to play a series of games hosted by a dead millionaire — and lifelong lover of games himself. Samuel Westing’s will is filled with games, tricks, and mysteries, all leading his heirs to their share of his estate… and although all are somewhat eccentric in their own rights, one might actually be a murderer.

13. ‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley

Alternating between the past and the present, Noah Hawley’s novel, Before the Fall, tells the story of a terrible (and unlikely?) boating accident. When an entire boat of people traveling from Martha’s Vineyard to New York one summer evening disappears into the thick fog off the coast, only two survivors surface: an unknown painter and a four-year-old boy who seems to have lost his entire family. But was the disappearance really an accident? As past and present begin to collide, and theories abound, the possibility that this was really a planned conspiracy becomes increasingly likely — and disturbing.

14. ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini

Young Afghan boys Amir and Hassan might feel like they’re best friends, but the ethnic and tribal tensions that permeate every aspect of Afghan society say otherwise. Amir is the son of a wealthy Pashtun merchant and Hassan, of the Hazara caste, is technically his servant. But Baba Amir’s father, loves both boys as sons; often exhibiting a soft spot for Hassan, while critiquing Amir. This fear of disappointing his father causes Amir to betray his lifelong friend, threatening their relationship with more than just the dynamics of Afghan politics. And once Amir betrays Hassan, unforgivably, he discovers — through one surprising twist after another — that the rest of his life risks being defined by this betrayal.

15. ‘We Were Liars’ by E. Lockhart

The winner of several awards for books for young writers, E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars introduces you to Cadence Sinclair, a teen suffering from amnesia who is struggling to remember the accident that led to her injury, trusts no one, and is questioning everything — including her cousins and best friends, the “Liars.” Written in choppy, nontraditional prose, We Were Liars will take you through Cadence’s internal journey, into the darkest depths of her mind, leaving you wondering whether she is the victim of a terrible violence or an unreliable narrator. All is revealed in the end.

Via: https://www.bustle.com/p/15-books-with-plot-twists-you-never-saw-coming-56286

20 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: June 2017

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Every month, the Writer’s Bone crew reviews or previews books they’ve read or want to read. This series may or may not also serve as a confessional for guilty pleasures and hipster novels only the brave would attempt. Here are their recommendations for June 2017:

  1. The Force By Don Winslow
  2. Killers Of The Flower Moon By David Grann
  3. The Light We Lost By Jill Santopolo
  4. Mom & Me & Mom By Maya Angelou
  5. Exit Strategy By Steve Hamilton
  6. The Bright Hour By Nina Riggs
  7. The Immortal Irishman By Timothy Egan
  8. American Bang By Doug Richardson
  9. Apollo 8 By Jeffrey Kluger
  10. Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give By Ada Calhoun
  11. Girl At War By Sara Nović
  12. Evicted By Matthew Desmond
  13. Trajectory By Richard Russo
  14. She Rides Shotgun By Jordan Harper
  15. The Story Of My Teeth By Valeria Luiselli
  16. Goodbye, Vitamin By Rachel Khong
  17. There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé By Morgan Parker
  18. The Animators By Kayla Rae Whitaker
  19. White Fur By Jardine Libaire
  20. IQ By Joe Ide

Click on the links above for a detailed synopsis of each book, or follow the following link to see what the Writer’s Bone crew had to say: Books-that-should-be-on-your-radar-June-2017

Gone Girls, Found | Talking with Gillian Flynn and Cheryl Strayed

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Gone-Girls-(2).gif

CHICAGO — The pairing of Gillian Flynn and Cheryl Strayed seems at once too obvious and not obvious enough.

Too obvious because both are female writers who happen to have had best-selling books optioned by Reese Witherspoon and made into high-octane, swinging-for-the-fences films.

And not obvious enough because Ms. Flynn specializes in probing dark, unsavory recesses of the human psyche, like her antiheroine Amy in the 2012 novel “Gone Girl.” Ms. Strayed rocketed to fame the same year with her memoir “Wild,” about her redemptive 1,100-mile trek along the Pacific Crest Trail as a brokenhearted divorced 26-year-old grieving the early death of her mother.

Yet the authors share similarities that run deep. Feminists both, they create bluntly authentic, deeply engaging stories through characters that defy stereotypes.

They have also forged roads to Hollywood gold. Directed by David Fincher and adapted by Ms. Flynn herself, the film “Gone Girl” has earned more than $300 million globally. “Wild,” directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, adapted by Nick Hornby and starring Ms. Witherspoon, is one of the season’s most anticipated films.

The first and last time Ms. Flynn and Ms. Strayed met was two years ago at a literary event in St. Paul, and they reconvened on a wintry Halloween here, greeting each other happily with hugs. Ms. Flynn, 43, has a newborn, her second child, and lives with her family in Chicago, and Ms. Strayed, 46, happened to be in town with her husband and two children.

Here are excerpts from their conversation.

Q. Tell me about when you first met, in St. Paul.

A. Cheryl Strayed It was freezing. We went on a hike, and I didn’t have a jacket. It was like “Wild” all over again, with the elements for which I was unprepared. And I remember I was talking about how our books are so different, readers have a different relationship to them. People who read “Wild,” they’re like, “You don’t realize it, but you’re my best friend.”

Gillian Flynn [Deadpan] They don’t feel that way about Amy?

Strayed Maybe it’s a little more like they’re fascinated to know who you are. Who’s the person behind that crazy story?

This question is from a Times reader: “Witherspoon wanted to create better roles for women, but has ‘Gone Girl’ shown women in a better role? Is it empowering or continuing stereotypes?”

Flynn I’ve been asked that a lot, and to me the answer is always: “Of course, it’s not misogynistic.” Women shouldn’t be expected to only play nurturing, kind caretakers.

That’s always been part of my goal — to show the dark side of women. Men write about bad men all the time, and they’re called antiheroes.

Were you surprised that that was the reaction you got?

Flynn I had about 24 hours where I hovered under my covers and was like: “I killed feminism. Why did I do that? Rats. I did not mean to do that.” And then I very quickly kind of felt comfortable with what I had written.

Cheryl, it’s your story, but did you get blowback from people, or was it just more relief at having told an honest story?

Strayed It never occurred to me, not once, that the book would be read as an inspirational tale. I really have no interest in likability when it comes to characters. It’s always about credibility, and to be credible you have to seem human. One of the most difficult things reading about the movie “Wild” was when people started writing about it and me in this shorthand way. I knew they hadn’t read the book, because the things they would say about me were just patently untrue.

What kind of stuff were you getting?

Strayed Often, they’ll say my problems were self-inflicted. And really the two biggest problems I began the trail with were the opposite of self-inflicted: the dead mother and the abusive father who wasn’t in my life. Those were my two most significant wounds, neither of which I inflicted upon myself, both of which I had to heal in myself.

It’s interesting what Gillian is saying. I think the lazy interpretation of Amy is she’s this evil psychopath and she’s all darkness. I think so much of the reason “Gone Girl” is so successful is that all of those very winning passages where Amy writes about her romantic life, falling in love with her husband, the way she constructs herself as a woman in the world. Those are very recognizable to us.

Flynn I think we wouldn’t have heard as much anger about it if she was more dismissible. She’s understandable, and that makes her a little harder to just write off. She’s not Norman Bates’s mom just sitting there in a rocking chair being evil.

Is there a double standard, where male characters don’t get that level of scrutiny?

Flynn The likability thing, especially in Hollywood, is a constant conversation, and they’re really underrating their audience when they have that conversation. What I read and what I go to the movies for is not to find a best friend, not to find inspirations, not necessarily for a hero’s journey. It’s to be involved with characters that are maybe incredibly different from me, that may be incredibly bad but that feel authentic.

When you were writing the books, did you think, “I’m breaking the mold and pushing the edges of these women characters?”

Flynn A theme that has always interested me is how women express anger, how women express violence. That is very much part of who women are, and it’s so unaddressed. A vast amount of literature deals with cycles of violence about men, antiheroes. Women lack that vocabulary.

Strayed The story I wrote has an ancient tradition in literature, man against nature, the hero’s journey. I was conscious of the narratives that I was both taking part in and also countering because the variation on the theme is: It was a woman, and it wasn’t “versus.” I say the wild felt like home to me. It wasn’t me trying to conquer it; it was me living in it. So much about “Wild” is about acceptance and surrender and vulnerability. To me that’s the greatest strength, not this conquering kind of narrative that we have embedded in our bones.

[To Ms. Flynn:] Is “Gone Girl” the movie being talked about as a feminist film or an anti-feminist film, or is the jury out on that?

Flynn The jury is still out. That’s what’s been interesting: Is it anti-woman? Is it anti-man?

Strayed What do you think it is?

Flynn To me, it’s neither. It’s about two specific people who are battling and who happen to be a man and a woman. I certainly enjoyed playing with those gender roles. Amy is certainly a character who understands every single female stereotype — and uses it. So when people say she’s embodying awful stereotypes about women, I say, “Yes, exactly, and that’s kind of the point.” She knows every trope there is. She’s a storyteller, she’s a studier, and she has absolutely no compunction about using the female victim role, using the femme fatale role, using the girl-next-door role.

Strayed I was so mindful that I had not written a book for women. I think the death of us would be if our films or our books were interpreted in this kind of “You go, girl” thing. And I think the last frontier for women is to say we are fully human, which means that our stories are as relevant to men as they are to women.

Flynn I would love it if I could do an event without a very well-meaning man telling me, “I don’t normally read books by women.” Do you get that?

Strayed All the time. One of the first experiences I had when “Wild” came out was this male radio host interviewed me, and right before we went live, he said, “I picked your book up and I couldn’t stop.” And then we’d go live and he’d go, “Cheryl Strayed has written a great book for women.”

Where does the twisted girl come from?

Strayed I remember, at our event we did together, you told some funny story about being a kid, it was about some early indicator.

Flynn I had a bunch of cousins, all girls, we’d play dress-up, and they’d always go for the princess costumes, and I was like, “I’ll be the witch” And we had this game called Mean Aunt Rosie, where I was basically their evil caretaker aunt.

Strayed I do think those things are like early indicators of what our obsessions are going to be as writers. When I was 6 and 7, when my mom’s friends were going to come over, she’d say “O.K., you’re only allowed to ask three questions.” Because otherwise I would get them in a corner and just grill them about things that were kind of shocking to them.

I wanted to hear from other people what they thought about their wounds, and I was trying to find out in ways that made adults very uncomfortable. I’ve always been the one to ask a question beyond the one that’s appropriate.

I want to talk about that move from book to screen. Cheryl, were you O.K. with Nick Hornby and was that difficult for you, turning it over?

Strayed He read “Wild” the first week it was out. I didn’t know him, and he wasn’t being considered as the screenwriter at that point. He just wrote me the world’s nicest fan email. So when Nick came on the project, I felt he understood the book on a deep level. It was always clear that I would read the screenplay, I would weigh in on it, I would be listened to, and I was.

Flynn Which is huge. You and I both talked about the stories you know about the author going to Hollywood are full of heartbreak. We both ended up with Reese, who is a woman of her word and does really care about writing, loves telling a story right.

You were working with David Fincher, who is known to be thorough.

Flynn I was on the set, but the script was locked by then. We just had a great back and forth, a lot of it by phone, since I’m in Chicago. When you hear David Fincher is going to direct your movie it’s, “Oh my God, I’ve got to step up my game.” But I wanted a David Fincher version of “Gone Girl,” so I was very much inclined to step back.

Strayed With Jean-Marc, I told him: “I give you my book. The only thing I ask is that you make a perfect film.” And he laughed. I gave him my opinions only when he asked for them.

And I told Reese the first time we talked, “You need to make this your story, not mine.”

Now, because I was so much a part of this, I would totally adapt my own book. I would do what Gillian did.

Via: https://nytimes.com/talking-with-the-authors-of-gone-girl-and-wild

Author Interview: Tor Udall

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Tor

Today on Writers Blog, an author interview from Tor Udell about her debut novel A Thousand Paper Birds, which took six years and eight drafts to bring to publication – proving there is hope for the rest of us yet! A delightful interview, and a novel I will be picking up in the bookstore.

About the Author

Tor Udall studied theatre and film before co-founding a dance-theatre company. She spent most of her twenties directing, writing and performing. She lives in London with her husband and young children. @TorUdall

A Thousand Paper Birds is her first novel and is an intimate portrait of five inextricably linked lives, spanning one calendar year at Kew Gardens. After the sudden death of his wife, Audrey, Jonah sits on a bench in Kew Gardens, trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his life. Chloe, shaven-headed and abrasive, finds solace in the origami she meticulously folds. But when she meets Jonah, her carefully constructed defences threaten to fall. Milly, a child quick to laugh, freely roams Kew, finding beauty everywhere she goes. But where is her mother and where does she go when the gardens are closed? Harry’s purpose is to save plants from extinction. Quiet and enigmatic, he longs for something – or someone – who will root him more firmly to the earth. Audrey links these strangers together. As the mystery of her death unravels, the characters journey through the seasons to learn that stories, like paper, can be refolded and reformed. Haunted by songs and origami birds, this novel is a love letter to a garden and a hymn to lost things.

The Interview

A Thousand Paper Birds is your first novel but with your career in dance and theatre, I wonder if perhaps storytelling is in your blood?

I think ‘creating experiences’ is in my blood. Capturing a mood, a glance, a moment. Having come from a dance background, which is all about communicating a feeling, the things unsaid, the push-pull of an encounter, I had to work hard to move away from a series of images and sensations to something with more narrative drive. I could, however, fall back on my theatre years to explore character motivations, the importance of an arc. I think, primarily, it is imagination that has been my fuel and anchor. Imagining different worlds, the infinite possibilities. Trying to make the familiar unfamiliar.

 

How long has this story lived with you?

It started in 2003 when I first moved to Kew and began jotting down notes about the Gardens. I was working on a different novel at the time so didn’t take much notice. Over the years, different threads began to form – including origami and the question, ‘Who is Harry Barclay?’. I was always struck by the abundance of life in Kew in juxtaposition with the commemorative benches. All those dead people who had ‘loved spending time in this garden’ only made me more aware of the beauty of the place and how fleeting the moment. This rub of death and life began to fascinate me. I started writing the novel in 2009 and it took six years and eight drafts before it reached Bloomsbury.

 

Loss and grief are central themes of the story, and your writing doesn’t shy away from the sensitive subjects of suicide and miscarriage. There’s a beautiful line where Jonah feels he ‘is clutching a newborn child, holding the exact weight of hope in his arms.’ Were you conscious of speaking about grief that is often kept hidden?

Yes. I suffered recurrent miscarriages between my first and second child, so I felt qualified to explore this difficult and often unspoken subject. Grief for an unborn child is real and yet intangible. I’m always interested in exploring the things that are in the mist, that you can only see the vague shape of – perhaps an outline here or there, the rest erased, amorphous. So I wanted to see if I could bring that yearning into being.

A close friend committed suicide when we were in our late twenties. It’s one of those things that leaves its mark on you and it turned up in my writing, unbidden. I think many of us have had some whimsical notion of suicide at some point – but I think there’s a huge chasm between thinking it and doing it. I’m really interested in what that is. The space between.

I have also witnessed friends die of terminal illness – and I’m interested in the grief of a dying person. I remember a day when there was a sudden downpour – a proper, constant dousing – and my neighbour, who knew he didn’t have long, walked out of his house with his umbrella and stood in the middle of the road just taking it all in. How do you say goodbye to that last rainfall? I think one thing the book tries to do is stretch that final moment. If I could press pause between my penultimate heartbeat and my last, what would my thoughts be?

 

The book remains hopeful, the idea of redemption ever-present – perhaps because the setting at Kew Gardens is so beautiful. Did you always know you wanted to set A Thousand Paper Birds there?

Yes. Kew always came first. I was living in a bedsit near the Gardens with only two windows that were so high I couldn’t see out of them. So if I had writing time, I would take myself off to Kew and set up my ‘office’ – which was always one particular bench by the lake. Eventually this became Audrey’s bench. If the weather was dreadful, I would seek refuge in the Palm House and perch on the hot pipes, surrounded by banana trees and palms. In later drafts, I would write in different locations depending on which character’s storyline I was working on; each character has a particular place that resonates.

 

The rhythm of the book was another source of joy for me; could you tell us a little about the structure and timespan the book is set over?

As a dancer, rhythm is vital to me: the rhythm of the sentences, the words, the chapter. It is important to me where the comma is, the dash. It’s Fred Astaire in a graceful spin, his arms wheeling, then a pause – oh, how important the pause is – before he stamps, shuffles, stamps again. Writing IS a dance.

As for the structure, I was weaving two timelines and five character perspectives. At first I worked in narrative order, then in deeper drafts I took the thread of just one or two characters and worked them from beginning to end, just polishing that particular arc. Then in the next draft I would braid them together again, checking the juxtapositions, the pace … and yes, most importantly, the rhythm.

 

Kew felt like a character in its own right, as did the origami cranes Chloe creates almost compulsively. What are your thoughts about the therapeutic properties of art and nature?

Both art and nature are sustenance to me. At an early age, I learnt from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden that nature has the power to transform. We enter a garden, and if we let it enter us, we leave changed. Ditto for woods, oceans, mountains – even a daisy in the crack of a pavement. It can totally shift my day.

The same is true with art. Many books have saved me. Music has lifted and consoled me. I have stood in front of a particular painting for hours, unable to leave. Often I don’t know why – just that it is making my soul itch. Dance has a profound impact. It touches on things we have no words for. It always breaks me and makes me bigger.

Fusing these two themes, I was interested in how humans strive to create and yet are systematically destroying the most creative thing of all: nature. Harry’s job is to save species from extinction. I’m dumbfounded by the vast variety of Kew’s flora. It’s enough to make you believe in a vast, divine imagination – but perhaps that creativity is coming from the seed itself, the atom. I’m curious about the urge to create that is in every living thing – the bud pushing through the soil, the ambition of a tree to birth an apple. In all of us there’s a striving to create, to be the fullest we can be.

 

I’ve been inspired to try and learn how to make paper birds by your book; are you a dab hand at origami yourself?

Sadly, no. I can do a few birds well. A couple of boxes. But it’s not necessarily about a big repertoire of models, but repeating the same bird again and again. There’s something very meditative about the process. But beyond my dabbling, there’s a whole world out there of origami masters making the most extraordinary things. Scientists use origami to solve mathematical equations. Leonardo Da Vinci, Houdini – many of the big thinkers have been enthralled by its mysteries and symmetries.

I love how many things can be created from a single square. How often can I unfold and refold the paper, changing it from a bird to a boat, a kimono, before the paper frays or tears? This was a metaphor for the writing process: how far can I push the form, fold in the different perspectives, and, particularly, how much can I crease the genres before something rips?

One of the best things about the book coming out is people telling me stories about origami birds being scattered in bookshops, left on trains, stranded at bus stops. People are picking up litter – a ticket, a chewing gum wrapper – and folding it into a gift for the next stranger … and the next. It’s a tiny act of resistance that says, despite everything, I still believe in beauty, in small gestures of kindness. A Chinese whisper.

 

As a destroyer of books myself, one of my favourite scenes is that between Harry and Audrey where they talk about books bearing the imprint of their readers – corners turned, pages smudged, words underlined.  Are you a careful or careless handler of books?

When I was a child, Roald Dahl signed a book for me. My copy had felt tip drawings in the margins, silly faces, doodles. He was charmed by it, saying the book had been well-loved, well lived-in. I won’t fold corners to mark my place – partly because I love matching books with bookmarks, but I will turn down pages to flag a favourite phrase. I underline often. I even scribble in the margins. Perhaps something I’ve read has set off a new thought about my characters, or a scene, so I’ll just begin to riff. It becomes a dialogue.

I particularly love holiday books. The ones that come back double the thickness because they’re bloated with sea water – or perhaps there’s sand in the seams, or an unspecified flower pressed between the pages. There may be dirt from a rickshaw. A squashed bug. My holiday has become part of the book – its story.

Some people might judge it as careless. But I believe the biggest compliment I can give a writer is to show them my copy of their book, all the corners turned, sentences underlined. Look. This is how much I loved this. This is how much I lived it. This is how much I cared.

Via: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Author-Tor-Udall

 

 

 

 

Some of the Best Book to Movie Adaptations

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Book-to-movies

Truth time: the book is not always better than the movie. What’s more, trying to figure out which version of a story is “better” isn’t always helpful. Film and print are two entirely different mediums, and we ask different things of each form. That said, here are the Book Riot team’s favourite book-to-movie adaptations, that capture the spirit of the original stories, while at the same time enriching them in the way that only film (or TV) can.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

I fell in love with the film, then read the book, then watched the film again to make sure I still liked it. While there are some major differences, Milos Forman’s adaptation captures the juxtaposing moments of insouciance and sorrow that take place in Ken Kesey’s novel. The cinematography is fantastic and the original score is haunting. Furthermore, it was filmed at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the same setting as Kesey’s work. In the year it was released, the film won all five major Academy Awards, a feat only accomplished three times in total. Also, Louise Fletcher’s performance as Nurse Ratched is incredible.

Anne of Green Gables

I loved this adaptation because it was simply a pitch-perfect re-imagining of the classic books. There were no weird new characters added (and, let’s be honest – this was filmed in the ‘80s, there very well could’ve been an alien), no modern interpretations of plotlines or relationships, just the book’s own narrative, which is why we all fell in love in the first place. And they could not have cast better actors to play the lovely Anne, Marilla, Matthew, Gilbert, and Diana. Filming on location in picturesque Canada, and especially Prince Edward Island, did not hurt: I usually like to keep the images from the book in my own head, but seeing the White Way of Delight, Lake of Shining Waters, and Green Gables itself, so true to the book’s descriptions, was blissful. And it’s made PEI a bucket-list bookish destination for me, and many, many other readers.

Witches of Eastwick

For me, this is actually a case of the movie being better than the book. Way better. I’m not saying John Updike isn’t a great writer, but his portrayal of woman wasn’t exactly the greatest in The Witches of Eastwick. But the movie is amazing and it’s mostly due to the cast. Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Jack Nicholson, and…Cher. Let me repeat that. Cher. Admittedly, the movie is a little campy, but it’s the ’80s. I’m also a sucker for movies when women band together (a la 9 to 5) and for me, the movie is what the book should have been.

Jaws

This is my go-to example when people say “name a movie that is better than the book.” (This, and Die Hard. Yes, Die Hard was a book first! It’s also the best Christmas movie, but that’s an argument for another day.) It is easy to pick Jaws, because I’m sorry but Jaws is a horrible novel. I’m sure it was a great trashy beach read when it came out, but it’s quite ridiculous. But from its ridiculousness, Steven Spielberg managed to make one of the most perfect movies ever. Every shot in Jaws is magnificent. Quint is one of the best characters. The whole thing is eminently quotable. And Spielberg cut out all the nonsense from the book, like – spoiler alert – Ellen Brody and Hooper’s affair, and the death of Hooper. How awesome is it when Richard Dreyfuss pops up at the end?

The 25th Hour

The perfect book to turn into a movie is one with a simple and lean plot that still hits heavy themes, and this debut novel by David Benioff is a great pick. The film is a faithful adaptation (by Benioff) with great casting (one of my favourite PSH roles and that’s saying something) and a talented director in Spike Lee. The 25th Hour is about a small-time drug dealer enjoying his last day of freedom before a long prison term, which sounds like a perfect Spike Lee joint, but this is a story where much is unsaid. No one can talk about the reality the next day will bring, the awkwardness and the emotion underneath are all captured here, and Lee lets the movie breathe without pushing too hard. The movie somehow feels both vibrantly alive and slowly paced. Oh, and it does a few more crucial things: it adds a strong sense of place, beautiful cinematography, and a great soundtrack. Books can do a lot of things, but these elements of sound and beauty are where movies really shine and it’s where the best adaptations make their mark. Warning: while this sounds like a total guy movie (dude bonds with his dad and other dudes) it is a huge weep-fest at the end.

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Fellowship of the Ring premiered on December 19, 2001. Since then we’ve seen the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy brought to screen and three movies based on The Hobbit. But I’ll never forget the excitement and the wonder I experienced in that movie theater when Middle Earth for the first time came to life in a movie that was both beautiful and respectful of the source material. When the movie was over, I remember exclaiming, “Yes!” with great emphasis. I was overwhelmed, in awe, exhilarated. And I couldn’t stop smiling.

The Princess Bride

Like many children of the ’80s, I became intimately acquainted with this movie well before I knew it was based on a book. When I did finally pick up William Goldman’s classic, I was delighted to discover how faithful the film is, not just to the details of the story but the spirit of it. This is a silly, and often ridiculous, story, and the movie, with its crazy-looking ROUSes and intentionally unbelievable sound-stages-dressed-up-as-mountain-cliffs, is just perfect. I’m afraid that if it were made today, we’d see WETA Workshop-style creatures and too much CGI, so The Princess Bride gets my vote for being practically perfect, and perfectly timed.

High Fidelity

When people ask me what my favourite movie is, I tell them it’s Rear Window or The Empire Strikes Back, but it’s probably High Fidelity. For one, it’s a perfect adaptation. Even though it messes with the book’s setting and even its main character’s name, it captures the spirit of Nick Hornby’s book in a way that so few page-to-screen adaptations have managed. High Fidelity is quotable, its soundtrack (and the way it’s used in the film) is exceptional, it features a career-best performance from John Cusack, Jack Black and Todd Louiso as the most endearing set of goofball employees I can imagine, and a Tim Robbins cameo even better than the one he has in Anchorman. The whole thing orbits around Hornby’s music nerd obsessiveness, and we watch Cusack’s Rob Gordon rank and list every meaningful experience (musical and otherwise) he’s ever had, including his most painful breakups. I love this movie, and I might as well face it: it’s number one, with a bullet.

Coraline

Coraline is one of my favourite all-ages books out there, and I was so thrilled when it was adapted to film. This is a case where the story went through changes (of course it did), but not to the point where one wonders what the production team was thinking. The book is one creepy experience, and the film another, with fantastic atmosphere and stop animation. If ever there were a book and film adaptation pair that could coexist, it’s this one.

Romeo + Juliet

Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet made me think that Shakespeare was “cool.”  The delivery of the lines, most notably John Leguizamo’s Tybalt, is forever ingrained in my mind so that when I read the play now I hear them. I see the over-the-top versions that Luhrmann chose for the movie and the play will always be better for it. I say “better” not because it improves on Shakespeare (blasphemy!) but because it makes the play clearer to me as a reader, and helps me understand what is going on in the scenes. And that should always be the point of movie adaptations.

True Grit

True Grit is one of my favourite all-time books, and a classic work that you put down and go “I see why this is a classic.” A small, seemingly straightforward novel that has all of its cleverness buried just below the surface, waiting for you to notice it. It was adapted once back in Olden Days, as a John Wayne movie, about which I have no particular opinion. More interestingly, it was recently adapted by the Coen Brothers (who are godly filmmakers) starring Jeff Bridges and Josh Brolin, among others. It’s a film that perfectly manages the sparse simplistic style of the novel (and understands why everyone in the story talks in the weird way they do). What I realised by the end of it, though, was it had got nearly all the book’s dialog in, word for word. I’ve suggested to some people that if you’ve seen the film, you don’t need to read the book. You’ve gotten the entire book, combined with excellent performances and a haunting soundtrack. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen a book translated 100% onto screen without the results being boring and forgettable. Masterful film.

Gone Girl

I go into movie theaters prepared to make excuses, register the differences, and generally side-eye any movie made from a film. That doesn’t mean I don’t often enjoy them, just that I take ‘em with a grain of salt. But Gone Girl was a pleasure to watch from start to finish. I’d read the book twice by the time I saw it, so the plot was firmly fixed in my brain – and the movie fulfilled its promise and then some. Every shot, every actor, every segue felt true to the spirit of the book and letter be damned! No one could have made better use of Ben Affleck’s chin; Rosamund Pike brought a smoky darkness to Amy; I’m now a huge fan of Carrie Coon; and I will never be able to forget Neil Patrick Harris’s, ahem, scene. Add to that the breadcrumbs that they strewed throughout the film, leading toward the inevitably shocking conclusion – and you have one of the most faithful film adaptations I’ve had the joy to watch.

10 Things I Hate About You

Heath Ledger serenading Julia Stiles with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and precious nerd-pants-baby-faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt trying to woo Alex Mack? How can this NOT be the best book-to-movie adaptation? I guess technically it’s a Shakespeare-play-to-movie adaptation, but would you rather see The Taming of the Shrew or 10 Things I Hate About You? Thought so. This is the movie that made us look at the smelly, borderline greasy dude in the leather jacket and think, “If I dance on this table to Biggie Smalls ‘Hypnotize’ and hit my head on a chandelier, maybe he will catch me before I fall, sing to me, royally piss me off by taking money from the guy who was on Party of Five and I think started his own religion in real life, then break into my car and leave me a Fender!” Maybe that was just me, I was 16 and apparently undateable when it came out. I highly recommend rewatching it as an adult. You’ll probably cry when Kat reads the poem to Patrick because… it’s really sad now.

The Shawshank Redemption

I spent a good portion of the ’90s rewatching The Shawshank Redemption over and over, and when I discovered that it was an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (from Different Seasons, if you’re interested), it recast the Guy Who Writes The Scaries into The Guy Who Has An Unbelievable Fictional Range in my mind. Tim Robbins is perfect as Andy Dufresne, the urbane and seemingly soft-but-actually-hard-as-fucking-nails banker sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife. Morgan Freeman is, well, Morgan Freeman (his speech to the parole board is one of the best moments in movie history). This is a hope-filled heart-breaker and classic film.

If you haven’t yet read these books or seen the movies, I highly recommend them all.

Via: http://bookriot.com/2014/12/22/riot-round-favorite-book-movie-adaptations

Author Interview: Allison Tait

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Allison-Tait

Allison Tait describes herself thus on her website:

“I’m a freelance writer, author and blogger, living large(ish) in a small(ish) town. I write a lot. I combine my day job (feature articles & non-fiction books), with my night job (fiction), and my 24/7 job (family). Fortunately, I gave up sleep years ago!”

A professional writer for over 20 years, Allison started her career as a staff writer for magazines and newspapers, and in recent times has added online publishing to her list.

Allison’s latest incarnation is writer of children’s fiction. Her first book in a series – The MapMaker Chronicles – Race to the End of the World – is published by Hachette Australia, under the name A.L.Tait and was released in October 2014. It is the first in a trilogy that is already garnering her a legion of young fans across the country.

Congratulations on the release of the Mapmaker Chronicles. You changed your writing name for this novel. What was the motivation behind this decision?

I didn’t so much change my name as abbreviate it! I wanted to differentiate between the writing I do for adults and this book, which is for kids.

When did you decide to write children’s fiction? Or did it choose you? Can you outline the start of the creative process behind this project? Was there a light bulb moment?

I think The Mapmaker Chronicles chose me! I never imagined I’d be an author of children’s books. When I began writing fiction, I wrote women’s fiction (which I still write, and so far have completed two full-length (90,000+ words) manuscripts, one of which went very close to publication and the second of which I am redrafting).

But I have two boys, now aged seven and ten, and they are both fans of the ‘head-hurting’ question. We have long-and-involved conversations about where space ends, how high the stars are, whether there are any places in the world that remain unexplored, which dwarf from The Hobbit I would invite to a dinner party… you get the idea.

Several of those conversations, close together, led to one of those ideas that make you tingle all over.

“How far does space go?” asked Mr10, one night.

“Nobody knows,” I answered.

Then the next night: “How did they map the world?”

“Well, they had to go out there and find out,” I answered, distractedly.

“They must have been brave,” he answered.

“They were,” I said. “They would have felt exactly as we feel looking out into space, not knowing how far it goes or what’s out there.”

And just like that, in my mind I saw a race to map the world, and a boy who really didn’t want to go.

You have many writing projects on the go at any one time. How do you manage to delve in and out of genres and characters, fiction and non-fiction? Does one writing style provide relief for another?

Over many years of freelance writing, I’ve learnt to juggle lots of projects. I like to have one long-length manuscript on the go, and then I work on articles, corporate work, websites and other things as they come up, using the deadlines as the best way to prioritise work. I really like to work this way – it means I’m never bored and I don’t get writers’ block because I simply move on to something else for a while if the words aren’t flowing for one project. I don’t work on more than one fiction project at a time – I just push through until I have it completed, putting aside any other ‘brilliant ideas’ for later.

With so much on your calendar how do you manage your writing time? Do you have a strict routine? Do you have to make personal sacrifices?

I have a mammoth To Do list and the paid work always comes first. When you have so many deadlines, it’s a simple matter of prioritising what needs to be done each day to ensure those deadlines are met. I don’t have a strict routine for writing in that I just do what needs to be done each day – but I’m at my desk while the boys are at school and I often work at night.

What advice do you have for starting out writers when it comes to pitching stories and managing deadlines? How do you deal with rejection?

Oh, this is such a massive subject. I have a lot of information on my blog at allisontait.com that’s full of advice for freelance writers and my eBook Get Paid To Write: The Secrets of Freelancing Success is full of tips and tricks of the trade. But as a starting point:

  • A pitch is not just an outline of a subject you’d like to write about. You need to find the angle of the subject that is new and exciting and you need to sell it. It’s a real art form and it takes a lot of practice. I often suggest to my students at the Australian Writers’ Centre that they open a magazine, read a story and then try to write the pitch that got the story published.
  • Reliability is essential for any freelance writer, and to be reliable you need to be organised. When you get commissioned to write an article, start making phone calls and lining up interviews that day – even if your deadline is four weeks away. Things don’t always go to plan and you need to allow yourself time to change interviewees or find a new case study or hose down any other disaster that arises.
  • Rejection is part of the game. It’s no fun and I don’t think anyone ever grows to like it, but you do get used to it (sad but true). Remember that the editor is not rejecting you – it’s just that the particular idea you’re pitching is not right for that publication at that time. Have a look at your pitch, rethink it with a new publication in mind and try again. Don’t just send out one blanket pitch to six publications – that will result in a lot of rejection.

Do you have any remedies for writer’s block? (taking your cheeky puppy for a walk?)

Everybody deals with this in their own way. As I said, I don’t really get writer’s block per se, but I do allow myself a lot of thinking time when I’m writing a manuscript. I find that my mind works best when my body is involved in some kind of mindless, repetitive activity, so I walk (not with the puppy though – he’s too distracting!), I wash dishes, I weed the garden, I hang out washing… And I usually find that if I do that for a while, my mind busily unravels whatever plot problem I’ve struck.

Do you find the self-motivation and the discipline required difficult?

Honestly, no. I never struggle to motivate myself to write fiction because I love it. I’d rather be doing that than just about anything else. When it comes to the freelance work, my day job, I have been a fulltime freelance writer for more than 10 years now and I know how to get an article written. Yes, some days I’d rather faff about on the internet and tweet, but that just means that I sit down later that night and get the story done. If I don’t write the article, I don’t get paid – that’s a great motivator!

Writers these days have to be very technically savvy and keep an online presence. How do you juggle your social media commitments with writing?

I think that this comes down to time in the game, as well as time on the field. I have been blogging for nearly five years now and have worked through several different social media platforms to accompany that, whittling it down to the ones that I like. Over the years, I’ve built up an amazing community across my blog, Twitter and Facebook. I do a bit on G+ and Pinterest, but mostly I go to the others because I really like them. My advice to people in this area is two-fold: do what you like and, most importantly, what comes easily to you so that it doesn’t feel like work, and secondly, don’t expect miracles overnight – it takes time to find your networks and create a community.

Do you find writing a lonely experience? It can also be an anti-social exercise. How do the people in your life deal with that?

I like spending time by myself. I have a busy family and social life outside of my work, and I’m more than happy to be alone in a quiet house during the day. I don’t write when my boys are around – or try not to (there are occasions when deadlines need to be met) – and I don’t work on weekends.

Do you have a routine / a particular place and time when you write?

I write in my study. I’ve tried writing in cafes but they’re too distracting. I work while the boys are at school and at night after everyone goes to bed.

Who /what inspires your writing? Who are your favourite authors?

I’m inspired by everything around me. I’m inspired by the joy I get from bringing a story to life. I have so many favourite authors and favourite books that I don’t think I could even begin to name them.

Why writing? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I think that writing is something that chooses you. I wanted to be an actor for a long time, but then I realised that the stage fright would kill me. I fell into magazine journalism and it kept me happy for a long time. And then I decided I was going to write fiction, so I sat down to give it a go. My first attempts were woeful, but you learn with every manuscript you write.

Do you have any further advice for starting out writers?

My main advice is to stop talking about writing and actually write. You’ll never get a book written if you don’t make the time to sit down and write it.

What is your next major writing project now that the Mapmaker Chronicles is released?

I’ve just completed the third manuscript in The Mapmaker Chronicles series, and I’m redrafting an adult novel that I’m hoping might be my first published in that area. That should take me to the end of the year. After that, who knows?

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If you’d like to learn more about Allison Tait, you can check out her website here.

You can see the original article here

17 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: May 2017

Posted in Blog, Books by

books-radar-may2017

Every month, the Writer’s Bone crew reviews or previews books they’ve read or want to read. This series may or may not also serve as a confessional for guilty pleasures and hipster novels only the brave would attempt. Here are their recommendations for May 2017:

  1. Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
  2. The Wrong Side Of Goodbye by Michael Connelly
  3. Marlena by Julie Buntin
  4. Janesville, An American Story by Amy Goldstein
  5. Little Victories by Jason Gay
  6. The River Of Kings by Taylor Brown
  7. American War by Omar El Akkad
  8. A Brutal Bunch Of Heartbroken Saps by Nick Kolakowski
  9. The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
  10. Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
  11. The One-Eyed Man by Ron Currie
  12. Recitation by Bae Suah
  13. The Warren by Brian Evenson
  14. Unbearable Splendor by Sun Yung Shin
  15. Hothouse by Karyna Mcglynn
  16. Make: A Decade Of Literary Art
  17. Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar

Click on the links above for a detailed synopsis of each book, or follow the following link to see what the Writer’s Bone crew had to say: http://www.writersbone.com/book-recommendations/books-that-should-be-on-your-radar-may-2017