Love in Dark Settings

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-waiting-for-spring.html

Title: Waiting for Spring
Author: R.J. Keller
Genre: Literature/Fiction/Contemporary Women’s Fiction
Price: $ 11.95
Publisher: Createspace
ISBN: 978-1440461163
Pages: 480
Point of Sale: Amazon
Review By: Cheryl Anne Gardner


For a standard “woman starting over after a failed relationship” type of story, this one had a rough edge to it that I liked -- liked a lot. If more contemporary women's fiction was written like this, I would read more of it. Tess, our narrator and main character, is a little off. She is Neurotic. Very. Very. Neurotic. Not to mention: cynical, sarcastic, and self-absorbed. Not much to like really, but considering her dysfunctional childhood, her bleak outlook on life seems somewhat justified. She sort of reminded me of a cross between Bukowski’s crass malcontented characters and Jennifer Aniston’s character in the movie Friends with Money: the sarcastic cleaning woman who isn’t living up to her potential, who gets stoned and obsesses over the man she lost. But this story has so much more to it than that.

To match the personality of the narrator, the narrative itself is very coarse. Tess just says what’s on her mind, and at times, it can be quite melodramatic. There is a fondness for choppy little fragmented thoughts and sentences that becomes noticeable right away. I felt it alluded to the character’s choppy, abrupt, and rather disjointed attitude about her own life and her own identity, but the chop might wear on some readers after a while because everything is so disconnected and at the same time completely exposed. Some might even say that Tess is a bit over exposed, and I would agree with that, but first person narratives with this type of story arc tend to feel self-indulgent, and so I felt the tell it all, here I am, and if you don’t like it go fuck yourself self-exploratory narrative was important to the characterization. Tess is raw, in more ways than one, and we feel it in the narrative. She is bitchy and vulgar on the surface in order to cover up deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, which she obsesses over endlessly to the point of sabotaging anything good that comes into her life. She has a toxic personality disorder, and some readers might find themselves disenchanted with her about half way through the book. I had a similar issue with Love and Other Natural Disasters by Holly Shumas, as the narrator’s neurosis was similar to Tess’. Some readers might find this a bit much to warrant the exasperating number of pages devoted to Tess’ self-destructive foibles and obsessive reminiscing. A prudent cut here and there would have taken care of this issue, but I liked Tess’ honesty, so even though the narrative seemed to drag a bit here and there and her obsessing did start to wear on my nerves after a while, I still didn’t mind spending so much time with her. Even in today’s liberated society, I still see women stifling themselves on a regular basis. Tess’ neurosis was all too familiar, and so the exposition was rather refreshing.

Structurally, the story begins with a prologue and establishes the narrator’s view on God, authority, and justice in the world. I liked the crayon metaphor, and considering it was introduced so early in the piece as if it were going to be a grounding element, I was disappointed that, thematically, it wasn’t carried through the text as deliberately as I had hoped it would be for such a powerful personality statement. We get dribs and drabs but not enough to fully flesh out that side of Tess’ personality, the true artistic and visionary side, which might have been the juxtaposition the story needed to offset her persecution complex.

For the story arc, we have Tess, our narrator and recently divorced thirty-something who is struggling with the demise of her marriage -- among other issues. She decides at the start of the story to try to escape herself by making a new start in a new town -- a new town where nobody knows her or knows about her past indiscretions. Then there is Jason, her ex, who left her because she had adamantly made it known throughout their marriage that she didn’t want to have children. Of course, we find out later that that wasn’t really the reason for his divorcing her. The real reason becomes obvious the more time you spend with Tess. Then we have Tess’ Brother David and her sister-in-law Kim. They are expecting their first child, which will predictably force Tess to reassess her position on the matter. Tess’ parents are typical archetypes: the mother is a cruel cold-hearted fault-finding selfish vindictive shrew, and since I have some extensive experience with that sort of nurturing, I could relate, and the father is basically the all around nice guy doormat who is too tired to fight anymore. There is a litany of other minor characters and sub-plots all of which refract the underlying themes of the story very well.

In the first third of the narrative, Tess moves to a new town and almost immediately takes up with Brian -- the younger man who lives downstairs from her -- in an effort to use sex to drown out the pain she feels over her failed marriage and her perceived failed life, even if she can't admit that that is what she is doing. The remainder of the book deals with Tess and Brian’s relationship, his failed relationship with his alcoholic father, and his relationship with his drug-addicted troubled younger sister. Tess’ inner conflict is reflected back into the narrative as she explores her own inter-personal relationships with the people who surround her in the story. As we all do in life, when we cannot confront our own shadow, we use the lives of others to sort out our own existential dilemmas and our own personal philosophies. It’s Tess’ idiosyncratic perception of the world around her that deepens her feelings of persecution and thus drives the story. Had the narrative been written any other way other than from her point of view, I think the intensity would have been lost, as the immediate storyline is offset with random flashbacks, and the intervals are pretty frequent. This is how the backstory of Tess’ entire life is revealed for the most part -- indulgent yes, but for Tess, it works.

As far as the technical stuff goes: I noticed a few fiddly punctuation issues: In this font the em-dashes seemed the same size as hyphens and not proper em-dashes, so reading those sentences made the eyes go a mite bit buggy because the sentences seemed confusing at first glance. There were some minor interior formatting issues, specifically the chapter start drop caps, which were not proper drops, and so it created an uneven amount of line spacing from the first line to the second. There was a typo or two -- my own personal nemesis -- and a missed word or two. But the issue that most concerned me and one that really affected the read "for me" was the extensive use of italics to indicate internal monolog, specifically the conflict monolog. The constant italicized interjection became jarring after a while. The true nature of a first-person narrative is that it is a reflective narrative, so italicized internal monolog is really unnecessary, especially in a narrative such as this where the narrator is already exposed to a great degree. In this case, I would have advised the author to leave it all unitalicized and to find another way to work in the internal conflict and integrate the thoughts. One could distinguish by the diction the internal “conflict” monolog from the regular First-person monolog without the telltale slanty words. This would have made the text block look better as well, and this would have restricted the italics to emphasis alone versus the use of Capitalized words, which again, to me, felt too in your face in an already in your face narrative. The italicized conflict monolog also created some paragraphing issues, where continuity was lost because the paragraph was split mid-thought to separate the internal conflict monologue from the main narrative. This separation is unnecessary and eliminating or integrating the italicized thoughts would have eliminated the excess chop -- chop that did affect the read for me and did reduce the review score somewhat. I understood what the author was trying to do in showing how disjointed Tess' mental state was during the narrative, but I thought the author's writting style did that quite effectively without the italics.

Aside from that, there was a certain ugliness to the story and the writing that came off almost poetic. The characters behave quite naturally in their world. There is a twisted very human logic to the situational conflict, and the backstory was integrated nicely: The balance between scene and summary was almost flawless, and although it might have seemed like everything set Tess off into flashback mode so she could revel in her own personal drama, it only reaffirmed her obsessive personality to me. The sex scenes were fluid in their emotive content -- innocent, yet deceptively insecure -- and they weren’t graphic or porn-speak laden -- thank goodness. Here the sex scenes are used very deftly to draw out the pathos of our main character as all good sex scenes in literary works are designed to do. Good show!

There are some really touching moments in the story -- very pure uninhibited emotion -- and there are some relationship moments where every reader will roll over in hysterical laughter at the idiocy of it all. Brian has his share of emotional wounds too: his out-of-control younger sister Rachel whom he plays the father figure to, a loser of a father, and the bevy of young babes he bedded during a male angst crisis seem to haunt him throughout the narrative. So the mismatched coupling of Tess and Brian works to the advantage of the story in a misery-loves-company/watching-the-train-wreck kind of way. What reader doesn’t love a good train wreck? This is the kind of story one might see on an episode of Intervention. So if you like deluded self-destructive characters, love desperation -- desperation makes people think about and do crazy things -- and love a narrator whose personality has been soaked in vinegar, then this book is for you. Even still, Tess has a good heart, and she has her vulnerable moments as much as she is wont to believe the mask she wears is on straight all the time:

Later that night I lit a dozen tiny candles all over my room
and we made love in my bed; slow and hot and beautiful. The
room was filled with shadows. They flickered everywhere; on the
ceiling, on the walls, on Brian’s face as it hovered gently over
mine. My heart was open wide, filled and overflowing with a
thousand fragile emotions I couldn’t even put names to. I stared
into his eyes, eyes that were glowing with dark orange light,
glowing with love and heat and the reflected flames of the candles,
and I was too overwhelmed for words or moans or sounds of any
kind. I just gazed at him, at those eyes, his hot breath on my face,
as he reached inside me and touched my soul.

In the end Tess’ prevails even through all the tragedy. I won’t be including plot spoilers here, but there was a moment where Tess finally stands up to her mother, and I could not help but cheer her on. Later she shares a moment with Brian’s sister Rachel that was absolutely excruciating to read, and the end of the book is a bit tense before the happily-ever-after wrap up. Let’s just say that fate and choice make for a bad coupling in this story. Action, reaction, and consequence, that’s what the story is about here … and God has little to do with it. So, if you like a real story, from a real woman’s point of view, about real life, and real relationships, and real womanly angst with all its unbearable messiness, then put the bleach away and sit down with this book. Despite the ugliness on the surface, it’s got real womanly grit, and I like that. It’s a story about survival, about surviving the perception we have been force-fed about ourselves and others. We all know that that sort of survival is rarely pretty, but it’s inspiring nonetheless.

8.5/10

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/thoughts-on-writers-life-cannegardner.html

To the question: How do the authors of sketches, stories, and novels get along in life, the following answer must be given: They are stragglers and they are down at heel. —Robert Walser

I am just too exhausted to rant this week. In the last three weeks, I read three books well over 400+ pages each and with that came four lengthy reviews. I did the final proof of my own novella Antiquity, not to mention the writing of my regular weekly columns, so my thoughts will be brief and focus more on the writer’s life and my own personal take on it.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/harlequin-horizons.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-guilt-gene.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/free-book-friday-winner-francine.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-picture.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/halloween-free-book-friday.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/thoughts-on-craft-cannegardner_29.html

1. Is the narrative summary relevant to the story overall, to a character, to a theme, to the moment?
2. If so, is it at the right place and the right time for it, and are you bridging the right amount of time and space?
3. If it is and you are, does it have movement and emotive descriptive content? Does it have style, voice, and presence?
4. If it does, does it give insight, or foreshadow later events, or does it create mood and/or a sense of intrigue?
5. Lastly, if you are combining techniques, as in, if you are using the narrative summary like a flashback or to temper the pacing of your story, are you giving too much, too little, or just the right amount. For me, I like to use narrative summary for back story, specifically to subtly reveal character motivations. I don’t like my characters to tell their stories in dialog to other characters. To me, it makes them seem self-absorbed. People don’t give lengthy dissertations about themselves, so I tend to wrap the narrative summary in the guise of a flashback, which, like in film noir, alters or obscures the linear sequence of events, and I never tell you everything. But that’s just me. Because I write novellas, I have to be careful to make sure only the most important moments are written as scenes. Everything else is kept to summary due to length constraints.

Now, how you use narrative summary will also depend on the story you are writing and the genre you are working in. Some genres and stories lend themselves very well to a good deal of narrative summary and some don’t. Mainstream fiction tends to have a much faster pace, and readers want action. They want a scene based story, they want it to move quickly, and the language should be invisible to a great degree. Literary and experimental fiction seem better suited to narrative summary. Readers want ambiguity, they want language and style, they want a unique voice, and they tend to want a more leisurely read, one that gives them things to ponder: a story where some things are left off the page. Summary can be used in some wonderful and very exciting ways to stunning effect. I am currently reading The Gargoyle and the majority of the book is narrative summary, where one character is telling our protagonist of his prior lives. There is very little actual scene and very little dialog: actually, there is very little movement in real time in this story, and the protagonist is one of the most loathesome I have seen. But I'll review it later when I am finished.

So, you will never hear me tell an author to Show don’t Tell. The craft is all about learning how to balance the two in a manner appropriate for your story, and the art is all about making both as compelling as possible. The books I mentioned in the article are good places to start if you want to learn more about writing narrative summary along with Deepening Fiction and Words Overflown by Stars.

The Book Cover shown is from Show & Tell by Dilys Evans. The book deals with the art of illustrating children’s books, but the cover copy actually applies here as well: Show and Tell teaches the reader (the author) how to look for the perfect marriage of art and text.

Yup, that about says it all, doesn’t it.

Cheryl Anne Gardner

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-haunted-naperville.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/sunday-picture_24.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/thoughts-on-vacation-cannegardner.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/see-sky-isnt-falling-cannegardner.html

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-of-waylands-principia.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zenhabits/~3/xKARAvHnGQI/

http://zenhabits.net/?p=5056

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

So you’ve followed the Short But Powerful Guide to Finding Your Passion, and have chosen something you’re passionate about.

Now you need to make it a career — but are perhaps a bit lost.

I have to admit I was there, only a few years ago, and three years later I’ve successfully done it, even if I’m a bit battered from the attempt.

It’s not easy — I’ll tell you that up front. If you hope to make a quick buck, or a fast million, you’ll need to find another guide. Probably one with lots of flashing ads in the sidebar.

So you have your passion picked out? Here’s how to turn it into a living.

1. Learn. Read up on it, from blogs to magazine articles online to books to ebooks. Look for the free stuff first. Don’t use this as an excuse to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. Most of the important stuff is available for free. Find a mentor, talk to others doing it, ask questions. Go on forums and ask questions there — from experienced people. Find others who are doing it well and study them closely.

2. Do. Do not put this step off for months and months while you learn. You’ll learn most by doing. Start doing it for free. Do it for friends, family. Find clients who’ll pay a small amount. Start a blog and write about it. Put it online and let others try your products or service. As soon as possible, go public — you’ll learn the most this way. Continue to do step one as you’re doing this step.

3. Get amazing at it. This is just more doing and learning. Read this post for more.

4. Start charging. As soon as you can do it well enough to charge, do so. You can start low — the main thing is to keep getting experience, and to get clients who can recommend you to others. You want to work hard to knock their socks off. Slowly raise your rates as your skills improve.

5. Keep improving. Never stop learning, getting better. Use client or reader feedback to help.

6. Build income streams. This is where the money starts coming in. You can start this step at any time — don’t wait until you’ve done all the other steps. Build as many income streams as you can, one at a time. Some examples:

* Regular consulting gigs.
* Freelance jobs.
* Ads or affiliate income from a blog or website.
* Ebooks teaching people how to do something you know how to do.
* A membership website that charges a small monthly fee (say, $9 or $20 a month) that will help others learn something you can teach them. This could include a forum, articles, videos, live webinars, other resources.
* An online course, similar to the membership site, but not requiring you to do live stuff or have a forum. Course could include ebooks, workbooks, videos, audio, online articles, other tools.
* Software or other downloadable products.
* Merchandise such as T-shirts, books, coffee mugs, etc.

There are, of course, many other types of services and products you can offer. Each income stream might only bring in a portion of what you need to survive, but if you continually build more income streams, you can eventually live off your passion. Congratulations.

Equipment and office? For most passions, you can probably do it from your home with minimal equipment (often just a computer). Avoid having to pay for office space or having any overhead that will make it difficult to start up or put you in debt. Start small, expand only as your income expands. Buy as little equipment as you can get away with at first.

Quit your job? If you can possibly afford it, yes. This might mean living on savings for a few months, or living off your spouse’s income, and cutting back on expenses. If this isn’t a possibility, make time to pursue your passion — before work, after work, on weekends.

Work for a company? If you get good at something, you’ll be in demand. You can then work for a company if you like. I recommend you try doing it on your own unless you need equipment you can’t afford or get an offer you can’t refuse.

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If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-picture_14.html

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http://zenhabits.net/?p=5011

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Sid Savara of Analysis Driven Personal Development.

In my life I’ve gone through periods of intense, driven productivity – months where everything fell into place, and my goals almost seemed to accomplish themselves. At the other extreme, there have been times in my life where I was completely overwhelmed, burdened by my different projects and responsibilities – and frustrated because so many of them not only challenged me, but didn’t matter to me. There were days when I asked myself how did I end up here? How did I end up working on all these things that aren’t who I am, and that don’t represent where I am going?

Some of our projects are extremely important to us, some matter a little – and some simply don’t matter to us at all. In this guide I’d like to discuss how to define and focus on what truly matters – and then discuss some strategies for making time for them.

Breaking It Down
Here are a few question to help you focus on what truly matters – and cut from your life items that don’t.

1. What does my life look like ten years from now? I love projecting into the future and imagining my life: mentally time traveling to picture where I want to be. The power of this exercise is even more apparent when you consider that you are the product of where you came from. Think of your favorite memories, people and events from your past and you’ll see things that have shaped you into the person you are today. Similarly, looking ten years down the road and imagining what I want helps me focus my energies </span>today to make it happen tomorrow. If my future daydream is filled with thoughts of spending time with my family and celebrating with friends – then that tells me I need to focus on maintaining those relationships today.
2. What is my purpose? Leo has previously discussed his life’s purpose and tips for finding your own life’s mission. If you have determined your life’s mission, that provides a foundation for where you should be spending your time – along with the activities, and ends, you should be focusing on. This is sometimes difficult because we may believe our life’s purpose is not in line with a “practical career” – but I disagree. There is no contradiction in using a “practical career” to pull yourself out of debt so you can be free for adventure, or perhaps to send your children to college. The disconnect occurs however, when your “practical career” is padding your bank account with money which means little to you – and you wish you were out living your true purpose instead.
3. What excites me? Sometimes we are scared to admit to ourselves what we really want to do, and who we really want to be because it’s not popular, or because it’s not as secure as the job we have. Deep down however, we know what excites us. We know what gets our heart pumping, and what gets us excited to jump out of bed in the morning.
4. What can I let slide? There are never enough hours in the day to do everything, absolutely everything, that I have some interest in doing. There is, however, enough time in the day to do everything that I am truly interested in, and that truly matters. Find what you can let slide -and then let it.
5. Do the consequences have meaning Every task and project has outcomes and consequences – but consequences don’t matter in and of themselves. What matters is how much those consequences mean to us. Sometimes we fight, claw and struggle towards down a path because other people want us to have the rewards at the end, or because the ends sound impressive – but if they don’t have meaning to us, then we will not be satisfied with the accomplishment. In other cases we may have initially pursued a goal, but our interests and purpose changed. If something doesn’t mean anything to you, then regardless of how important it is to others, how impressive it may be or how important it may have been in the past, it may be time to let it go.

Making Time
You may already know what truly matters in your life – but are finding it difficult to make time for it, and to focus on it. Here are some tips to help you make time for what truly matters:

1. Do it first. In Zen To Done Leo suggests picking your 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) and doing them first thing in the morning. Similarly, once you find what truly matters, try to take care of it first before spending time on tasks that matter less to you. Some people have experienced significant increases in productivity when writing, working out, or meditating early in the morning. I personally believe in paying myself first with my time, and live it every day. I work on my personal goals first thing in the morning, before I do anything else. This way every day begins positively and in line with my future.
2. Schedule it in. I’m very busy, and so is m family. My parents and I want to make time for each other however, so I literally schedule dinner in on my Google Calendar. I treat that appointment with the same seriousness as anything else in my life. It’s a commitment to my future and what truly matters.
3. Treat it as an emergency. My life is booked back to back with work, appointments and various commitments – but when I had to go into surgery for appendicitis, none of the little boxes in my task list got checked off that day. Instead, my routine came to a halt as I dealt with my medical emergency. If you’re having trouble letting things slide, or aren’t sure where you can make time, then consider treating your life mission as an emergency. Clear important, but unnecessary items off your schedule for a day – and let them go. Every day that you spend on tasks that don’t matter is a day you can never recover – and that, to me, is an emergency.

What Truly Matters, Matters
We all know deep down there are different things that drive us – hobbies that excite us, passions that we wish we had more time to explore, people we wish could spend more time with. I believe that identifying, focusing on, and spending time on what matters to us, is not simply a thought exercise.

Focusing on what truly matters, truly matters.

Find out what drives and truly matters to Sid Savara at his blog, Analysis Driven Personal Development. Sign up for his email newsletter and get a free copy of The Little Book Of Big Motivational Quotes.

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If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Comments? @zen_habits me.