The Book That Inspired My Author Adventure

watershipdownWe all know every writer started as a reader. Recently a writer friend of mine shared that the book she read in middle school that kicked off her interest in writing for children was E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. I agree that book is a serious favorite of mine too. I named my first two-wheel bike Charlotte after all. But for me, if I have to narrow down from all the books I read as a kid, (everything from To Kill A Mockingbird to Salem’s Lot) the one book that inspired me the most was Watership Down by Richard Adams.

The blurb from Sparknotes does not do this novel any favors:

Watership Down is the tale of a group of rabbits in search of a home. Fiver, a small, young rabbit, has a gift: He can tell when things are going to happen and he can sense whether they will be good or bad. Fiver foresees great danger to the rabbits’ home warren.

 

Bunny Metaphors Abound

Bunny Metaphors Abound. Photo credit Irina Blaski 2016.

The book is So. Much. More. Maybe part of my affection stems from the fact that my favorite teacher in middle school passed along her personal copy to me, encouraging me to dive deep within its pages to find the story beneath the story. Shout out to Mrs. Monroe @Summit Hill Junior High for lighting the fire within this little girl. Honestly it took her a couple weeks of pestering for me to give this book a chance just because the back cover blurb was so lame.

Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. And so began my love of reading and writing stories that are more than what they seem on the surface, stories with nuance that warrant a second, and third reading.

Richard Adams wrote Watership Down in 1972. From his Amazon Author Page:

Richard George Adams (born 9 May, 1920) is an English novelist, author of Watership Down, Shardik, Maia, The Plague Dogs, Traveller, Tales from Watership Down and many other books.

He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters during a long car journey, and they insisted he write it down. When Watership Down was finally published, after many rejections, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Watership Down has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1972. To date it has sold over 8 million copies and been translated into many languages, including Finnish, Hebrew and Chinese.

And yes, he’s still alive and kicking at 96 years old. [UPDATE Richard Adams passed away the day after Christmas, 2016 a mere three months after my original post. His obituary can be found http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38446309. RIP.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Adams

Adams reads from Watership Down at a 2008 exhibition of Aldo Galli paintings, Photo Credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Adams

One of my favorite interviews with him is from The Telegraph, originally published in 2014, in which he tells us that when his publisher accepted the manuscript (after rejections from seven other publishers) “This blew a trumpet in my heart.”
Great line, right? It’s the same feeling I get when a four or five star review for any of my work hits Goodreads!
Another of my favorite Adams quotes is from an interview with Alison Flood of The Guardian just last year, where he said, “I do not believe in talking down to children. Readers like to be upset, excited and bowled over.”
Nothing wrong with a little heart-pumping excitement or a good, cleansing cry while turning the pages of a book.
Which book started your author journey? Share in the comments!

Do not judge this book by its cover…

pinkhungergamescoverMy daughter brought The Hunger Games home from school this month. I told her she could read it since she was “almost thirteen” and I couldn’t locate my own copy for her to borrow. We’ve talked about the kid-on-kid violence in the book and the love triangle cliché. But there are themes and issues I think she’ll gain insight from: heroism in the face of oppression, the non-violent resistance expressed by characters like Cinna and Peeta, Haymitch’s PTSD. Besides, it’s a great read, written well.

No, the book’s not the problem.

The problem is the cover of the edition she brought home. This picture does not do it justice.

It’s pink and sparkly!?!

The Hunger Games is not a pink and sparkly tale. It does not warrant a fairy-tale princess cover with Dr. Seuss lettering. What are these publisher’s thinking? It’s a “girl’s” book so it needs a “girl’s” cover? Every twelve-year old girl in America has read this book so now we need to open up the market to six-year-olds? Call me crazy, but a pink cover with sparkly green lettering and the title The Hunger Games makes me think the book is a spin on Cupcake Wars.

I suppose they could use this technique on all sorts of “dark” books to trick readers into thinking they’re in for a lighter read. Word War Z with zebra stripes? The Kite Runner with a smiley face on the kite? The Shining featuring Frosty the Snowman? Too bad Amazon previews don’t take a sample from the middle of the books…

You’re off to the Hunger Games…”Today is your day…” to kill off some kids…”So…get on your way!”

Quote extremely modified without permission from Oh, the Place You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss.

 

The Power of Reading Aloud

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YOUR MIND WHILE LISTENING TO A BOOK

 

I have always loved reading books aloud. When I was a teen I spent an awful lot of time on the phone. Actually talking . . . it was a landline phone. And it was in my room. With unlimited local calling for $17 a month. I held down a few babysitting jobs so I could afford that phone and one of the magical things I did on it was read books, aloud, to my friends.

I know right? I have great friends. They would humor me as I did different voices for all the characters. I remember reading Stephen King’s Night Shift to one friend in particular, story by creepy story, until one night my friend casually asked, “How about you read something that won’t prevent me from sleeping after we hang up?”

Reading aloud continued through my adult years except my new captive audience was my kids. From Sandra Boynton to EB White, I was the one who had a hard time stopping so the kids could finally go to bed. My oldest, bless his heart, let me read the entire Harry Potter series to him, even though the last book was published the year he turned eleven and he was fully capable of reading it on his own. BTW, I do a horrifying Voldemort and a kick-butt Hermione.

Now I have a new reason for reading aloud beyond the entertainment factor: EDITING my own WRITING. There is nothing so powerful as stumbling over your own words to make you realize more polishing is required. Reading aloud forces my mind to slow down and see each and every word. When I read silently, I miss typos, grammar errors, and missing words becuase my mind will fill in the gaps– it just hums along without recognizing I just had my protagonist pee around the corner instead of peek around the corner.

Even better, is listening to someone else read your words to you. My very first novel, the one that garnered me two offers of representation and an agent, was read to me by my son. He would stop and tell me when he didn’t understand something so I could put it into simpler language. I would stop him when I heard a sentence fail and fix it before he went on. It was a great partnership, but alas, he is eighteen now and has a life.

However, I have discovered how to let my computer read my words to me. Granted, my lovely Macbook can’t put the emotional nuance into the words that a human being can, but hearing someone else’s voice (Okay, someTHING else’s voice) read my work back to me continues to be eye opening. And I have become very fond of “ALEX”, especially when he reads one notch above Normal speed.

This is how you do it on a Mac:

  1. Open the system preferences
  2. In the System grouping, open SPEECH
  3. Click on the Text to Speech tab
  4. Choose your system voice with the drop down arrow, male or female (I prefer Alex or Kathy depending on if I have a male or female POV)
  5. Choose the voice speaking rate
  6. Test your choices with the Play button and alter as needed
  7. Click the check box for “Speak selected text when the key is pressed”
  8. Click the set key button to set up a keyboard command, I use Command + H which means to get Alex talking I press the Command key and the H key on my keyboard at the same time, but you can choose any combination of keys that makes sense for you that isn’t already in use, you know like CTRL + P which sends your work to the printer…
  9. Click the OK button
  10. X out of the System Preferences window and you’re good to go

Now when you have your book open in Word or Scrivener or whatever program you use, you’ll need to highlight the text to be read (click your mouse button at the top of the passage, hold the mouse button down, drag through the selection, release the mouse button) and then press Command + H.

Oh, make sure your speaker is turned on too!

What are the directions for doing this on a Windows-based computer? Why would you want to write a novel on anything but a Mac? 🙂

Photograph © Ruslana Stovner