Stephen King’s On Writing is a mixture of autobiography and ‘how-to-write’ book. It works both ways. I’m not a huge King fan but it was still very interesting and inspiring to hear about his early misadventures, especially if you’ve read some of his short story collections and get the fun of connecting story to real life incident.

As a ‘how-to-write’ book it was liberating to me. A lot of what King thinks just falls in line with what I feel, or even hope. One of his premises (and out of context it sounds a tad silly but it fits, believe me) is that stories already exist, and as a writer it is your job to carefully unearth them for the world to enjoy. King eschews elaborate outlines and summaries and instead lets the story go where it will. That appeals a lot to me.

There’re also some very practical tips and advice; in fact the book is jam-packed full of good stuff. If you’re struggling to find your voice, to meet your muse, read this book!

Finished Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten this morning. It was a wonderful book; I can’t believe it was her first. I was very skeptical of the whole ‘modern day werewolves’ theme, to be honest, but damned if she didn’t pull it off nicely, telling us a riveting story while giving us glimpses into the whole werewolf mystique and leaving room for many more stories to come (I hope).

Overall she kept a tight leash on things (yes, pun intended) until the very last parts of the story where she got a little careless about leaving bodies behind, so to speak. This is forgivable in that the reader is so caught up in things by then that they’re probably just as happy to not have to pause for the explanation of how a fight scene is cleaned up. Ideally, though, we wouldn’t be left with questions of “What will the police think when they find….” and so forth.

That’s a minor nit, though. The story moved along really nicely; a real page turner. Elena is a believable modern day heroine. She’s got flaws and she has some very dense moments (perhaps a few too many — several times I was shouting the Bitten equivalent of “DON’T GO IN THE BASEMENT!”) but she’s still likable and a very sympathetic character.

I’m looking forward to reading more from Ms. Armstrong.

So suddenly I’m on a crazy Backgammon kick, and I’ve been playing at DailyGammon.

But I haven’t played in years, so I assumed I was going to suck. I dislike sucking at things that I do so went out looking for a book on backgammon and more or less at random picked Backgammon for Winners by Bill Robertie. And it turned out to be a decent choice.

It’s a fairly thin book, which I liked. I didn’t want to spend 2 weeks reading about the history of the game (at least not right now). Robertie jumps right into the meat of the subject, first giving the rules and a bit of broad strategy as well as best opening moves for every possible first roll of the dice. But the bulk of the book is taken up with three different sample games, and Robertie analyzes each move of each game, giving lots of explanation for why something was a strong or poor move. While he suggests you set up a board and move the pieces yourself, there were enough illustrations that you don’t have to do so (I didn’t).

By the time you work through these three sample games you’ll understand backgammon notation, the different phases/styles of a backgammon game, why control of certain points is more important than others, and you’ll even see examples of when the ‘rules of thumb’ should be broken. He does a good job of urging you to go back and reread a section if its covering difficult material, keeping you from glossing over it with an ‘I’ll figure this out later” shrug.

Overall, I’m thinking this is a good first backgammon book. Recommended.

I finally finished New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver and I have to say, I can’t really recommend it. I mean, her stuff is “nice” and if you’re a nature freak than you might enjoy it. But for me there was way too much wildlife and way too few people, which left the poems feeling a bit vapid to me.

Obviously poetry is a very personal thing, though, and she is wildly popular. I just think I’d prefer something a bit edgier…

Last night I started in on Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 1). It was late and I didn’t get much past the prologue but that bit was pretty entertaining. Its about a woman in modern times who is a werewolf. Yeah, back to genre fiction. 😉

Anyway, haven’t read enough to talk about the book, but oddly I wanted to talk about the publisher. Its from Plume, which is a division of Penguin Books. Its a paperback (I read in bed a lot so prefer paperbacks to hardcovers since the book is often resting on my chest.) but its got a really nice binding and feels like a ‘real book’ if you know what I mean. The cover has a flat finish rather than that glossy cheap-seeming dimestore paperback stuff.

I know, I’m being weird. But I just really like the feel of this book in my hands.

So I finally finished Sea of Glory yesterday. In spite of the fact it took me months to read, I’m still giving it a big thumbs up. I’m mostly a fiction reader and when I have a choice between a novel and a non-fiction volume, I tend to grab the former. Ergo the long time spent on my night stand.
Continue reading “Sea of Glory”

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillside.

-Mary Oliver
from New and Selected Poems, Vol 1

A friend turned me on to Mary Oliver recently, and in fact back on to poetry in general. Much of what she writes is pretty but doesn’t really touch me just now, but then something like this floats across the page and I am struck down for a while, trying to take it in.