Category: #amreading

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#amreading Review Time

Dripping Thoughts from The Prayer Room

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been focusing on Shanthi Sekaran’s The Prayer Room. I met Sekaran last month at her Reading/Signing at Books Inc.; the excerpts she had read from her book built up anticipation within me to finish reading my then-current books and start on her debut novel.

This is the second time in my adulthood where I have read an author’s debut work; the first time, I’d prefer not to mention at the moment since it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. As a fellow writer, I do sincerely applaud Sekaran for her feats in becoming published and weaving together a lengthy novel. However, as a fellow writer, I can see some room for improvement in the future; and as just a reader, there are some aspects of the novel that bother me as I’m reading:

  1. Characters’ POV – From the start, I had assumed the novel would be about George, but, for most of the book, the focus actually seems to be on Viji, his Indian wife. I’m not sure if that was Sekaran’s intention, to shift the POV like that. Also, I’m not sure if it’s really necessary to change POV so suddenly within paragraphs/chapters among the other members of the family. It keeps the story going, but it has given me a slight wipe of confusion as I try to figure out whose POV I’m reading at the moment.
  2. The significance of the actual puja room aka prayer room – I understand that the puja room is where Viji feels the most safe, the most comfortable. However, I don’t currently understand why the spirits have to talk back to her, and why they seem to add a strange twist in humor to the overall sad mood of the novel.
  3. False turning points – There are a few parts of the novel so far where I felt like Sekaran really wanted to build up some suspense, some sort of climax, but in the end, I felt like it all built up to nothing. For example, the Thanksgiving “breaking point”; perhaps Viji’s actions were inferred the whole time, but I felt like I completely missed the point in the whole scene. Maybe I read too much of the face value and not enough between the lines.

As a reader, these are the aspects that bother me, but as a writer, I can understand the challenge of weaving together a long story. I’m still just a budding writer, so I may not be as well-versed in literary ways, but I suppose you can say I’m the average reader…and I don’t really “get” some parts of the book.

But, with all said and done above, I still genuinely do like the novel so far. I’m currently in the last quarter of the book, and it has been eye-opening in some ways to culture and how families handle the mixing of two cultures. It’s also refreshing to read about bits of Indian culture, since I’ve read more books about Asian culture/Asian-American culture before The Prayer Room.

I look forward to reading Sekaran’s future work, and hope to meet her again as well.

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#amreading #amwriting

Thoughts about "The Street-Smart Writer"

Since I flew through reading my previous book, I cracked open The Street-Smart Writer this week to finally check out what Jenna Glatzer has to say. One of my sisters mentioned this book to me since I was growing confused about how to go about with publishing/sending my work out.

I have to admit, reading this book has made me feel depressed over what I had hoped to do with my novels (self-publishing). I’m not saying I’ll completely rule out that option yet, but the advice/tips in the book have been big reality checks for me. All of it has made me wonder what it is that I want to achieve out of becoming published. It’d be nice to have a bestseller, but that’s not the sole reason why I want to be published. I want others to enjoy my work, to be able to understand how my characters feel and whether or not they can relate to those characters.

When I embarked on this mission late last year, I wasn’t being foolish; I knew that the road to getting published/building my foundation in the writing world would be a long and sometimes frustrating journey. However, that’s how most things are like in life, no matter how different the subject matter may be: job hunting, establishing a romantic relationship, etc. It’s not all different from the life of an unpublished writer striving to become published. We all go through the same kinds of hardships, but in the end, if it’s something important to us, it’ll be worth all the tough times.

So, even though some of the topics listed in this book have made me feel slightly discouraged, I know it’s just a bump in the road, and that, by reading this book, hopefully I will prevent too many mishaps from happening to me in the “preditor” world.

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#amreading #amwriting

Muse Gone MIA; flying through books.

All weekend long, I wasn’t able to feel much inspiration to work on Novel 4 nor move along the progress in Novel 1’s editing/revision stages. I suppose my muse has gone on vacation for the time being, but I only hope he or she will come back to me soon enough.

During this past week, I have been flying through some books that I checked out from the library. I finished reading Shirley Fong-Torres’ The Woman Who ATE Chinatown and am currently wrapping up Martha Brockenbrough’s Things That Make Us [sic]. Both books have been insightful and good breaks from reading fiction (Stanley G. West’s Blind Your Ponies was a huge project to finish up anyway…). However, as my habit has become, I’ll need to get back to reading some more fiction soon since I’m feeling slightly burnt out from reading nonfiction (is that the correct classification for those kinds of books?). I’m trying to cut down on adding any more books to my “to-read” list on Goodreads since I’ve hit 300+ on that list…there’s no way I’ll be able to read all of those books if my list continues to grow. Gotta slow down.

I continue to receive notifications about people adding my story “Riches to Rags” to their favorites on Scribd. It’s amusing to me to see how my other story, “Tight Jeans”, hasn’t received nearly as many hits and nobody has added that story to their favorites. What is it that has drawn readers to Ivan instead of the anonymous bakery shop owner? It’s something I’ve been pondering; is it because of the POV? The voices of the stories themselves? What can be improved upon “Tight Jeans” to make it more appealing?

Perhaps my answer will come to me soon enough. In the meantime, I will need to really get working on my other short story revisions. Until next time….

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#amreading public library

Book Events This Week.

I attended two different book events this week: one for Shanthi Sekaran’s debut novel, The Prayer Room; the other event for Yiyun Li’s novel, The Vagrants. Both were insightful for me, since I was able to see how authors organize their book events differently. Of course, the venues weren’t the same either: at Book Inc., Sekaran’s event was held in the back of the bookstore, a somewhat more cozy atmosphere. For Li, she held her event at the public library in one of the community rooms, so it was more like a lecture hall.

Shanthi Sekaran appeared to be nervous since it’s her first book tour; however, the excerpts she read from her book were promising and strong. I briefly chatted with her, and it was flattering that she recognized me from goodreads. I wish her the best of luck on the rest of her tour.

Yiyun Li read fewer excerpts from her book, but nonetheless they were also captivating. The story seems to lean more towards political themes from China, so it may take me some time to read through the book. I was more interested in the tips she was giving to the audience during the Q&A; the bits I liked the most was about her “literary heritage” (she aspires to write like an Irish author), and about how “a novel is like a marriage, while a short story is like an affair.” Both insights made me think more about my own background, and what I seek with writing. What kind of literary heritage do I have? Have I even established it yet? It also amused me when Li mentioned that one of her favorite hobbies is eavesdropping.

I’m looking forward to reading both books and also attending more book events in the future.

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#amreading contest inspiration Novel 1 Work in Progress

Finding Inspiration From Others & Delays

Recently, my bus rides have been consumed with reading Blind Your Ponies, by Stanley G. West. It is a thick monster of a book, and at times it’s hard to follow the plot since West writes from multiple points-of-view, but nonetheless, I have enjoyed the story so far. It’s been captivating my attention on the bus rides to and from work that I don’t even have the time to think about using my iPod these days.

Reading the book, however, has made me also realize a lot of things about my own writing. The prose in West’s book is smart and rather lyrical; I continue to wonder if my writing will reach that point someday. Yesterday, I went back to the public library to do more research in the writing magazines; I found myself feeling more humbled by the articles I read on how to improve my drafts and my general sense of writing.

The past week or so has been dry for me, writing-wise. Things began to slip a little bit last Wednesday, but I’ve still managed to keep up the momentum for my daily Novel 1 check-in. I should really start referring to that book with its working title, so I can feel more sense of completion. Since the deadline for ABNA is already less than a week away, I’m disappointed to say that I will not have my manuscript ready for submission. Well, it was worth the try to aim high so soon; I will still continue to aim for self-publishing the book by this summer.

Well, my Muse will come back yet.