2010 Reading List

Below is the list of books that I read in 2010. I'm fairly certain it's accurate, as I was pretty good about updating this log when I finished a book. I also put links to the reading journal posts where applicable. The last two reviews are coming soon as I just finished them.


The Chronicles of the Black Company - Glenn Cook
The Mabinogi - Patrick K. Ford
Little, Big - John Crowley
The Runelords - David Farland
Spellwright - Blake Charlton
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Brotherhood of the Wolf - David Farland
Moonwise - Greer Gilman
The Etched City - K.J. Bishop
The Animal Bridegroom, Poems - Sandra Kasturi

So, I only read 10 books in 2010. 10 books in a year is just shameful! Well, I'm not going to shoot for 11 books read in 2011. I'm going to have to aim higher than that.

Rejection

The bad: rejection from Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

The good: personal note and invitation to submit in the future.

It is as I feared (I should really start listening to those voices in my head): the pace is too slow. I need to change the beginning back to the way it was before. I can do that easily because I kept my submission to Flash Fiction Online.

I'm a little happy about this rejection though. Strange right? Right after I submitted it, I found another mag I think this story will really fit well with. So a few little tweaks and I think I'll have it...

Currently Reading
Fantasy: The Etched City - K.J. Bishop
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0
Workshoping:
Beyond the Cemetery

A Reading Experience

This is going to be more of a description of my reading experience with Greer Gilman’s Moonwise. The basic story is simple, but experiencing the text is utterly magical. This is why fantasy is my chosen genre. Reading it transports you, the prose effects a wonder that strikes at my heart. And this book did that so well that I am going to talk more about that than anything else. If you want a book review go find one at Amazon. If you want to find out what it’s like to read Greer Gilman, read on.

Moonwise is Greer Gilman’s first book, originally published in 1991. It won the Crawford award in 1992, and was nominated for the Tiptree and Mythopoeic awards. It was released in hardcover by Prime books in 2005 and reissued by Wildside books in 2006.

I know she wrote this book over the course of 10 years on a typewriter with no outline, and no plan for it. For this, the work was well edited (though I did find a few line errors). I know going back through this much text and making sure everything is in the right place is difficult to say the least, and the business-savvy side of me screams of inefficiency, but I only have the most respect for a mind that can successfully wrangle with that.

I’d heard so many great things about Gilman, and I’d seen her participate in various panels at Readercon and Boskone. She is a brilliant folklorist and wildly creative woman. But after hearing her read, or more accurately perform (from another of her stories), I just had to read her books. But it was hard to find through my normal channels (used). So I was thrilled when I found it at Readercon last July and was able to have it signed.

So, with great anticipation I finally picked it up, appropriately, in September (the story takes place in fall and winter). But it’s December now. Yes, it took me a long time to read. The prose was just as dense and challenging as the literature I studied in college. I took my time with it, savoring the lines, references and double meanings like I savored those of Dickens. Even though I read it cover to cover and followed the arc of the story, I can’t help but think I’ve missed a lot of...something in the writing.

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t instantly in love with the book. It had a slow, kind of boring start with a few dead ends and little hope of clews. And I didn’t expect the story to be what Farah Mendlesohn describes in her book, Rhetorics of Fantasy, as a “portal quest” story, in which the characters go through a portal from the normal world to another. Moonwise started in contemporary times with two girls, Sylvie and Ariane, who see the same world I see.

I prefer my fantasy untouched by the modern world. I usually don’t like contemporary fantasy stories as much because the main characters are my filter to the world, and I’d rather see it through the eyes of a native than someone like me.

Yet, I can hardly say Sylvie and Ariane are like me. Although they are denizens of the 20th century, if I met one of them in person, I might describe them as otherworldly. They were a promise of what was to come: enchantment, folkloric references and skillful world creation. These things charmed me and kept me examining page after page.

After the story got going, Gilman always keeps the suspense and tension up. One way she did this was by making the world never comfortable. I’d pity the characters and wonder at their survival. They were always freezing and wet and sleeping on rocks, or even when they found a welcoming home, it was bad news and holding out the suspense and dread of what is to come.

I’ve finished this story once, but I know I’ll come back to it and go find her other books. With its wonder, it has wakened sleepy and tired spots in my brain that I had forgotten, it has opened up new parts of my brain, and it has filled them with possibilities--nature abhors a vacuum.


This blog entry is cross posted at Wandering Around the Words.

This blog entry is cross posted at Greater Portland Scribists.


Currently Reading
Fantasy: The Etched City - K. J. Bishop
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: On Fate's Waiting List
Agent: 0

Workshoping:
Beyond the Graveyard

click...

Just submitted "On Fate's Waiting List" to Beneath Ceaseless Skies!
average response time is 3-5 weeks.

If this goes poorly I'm going to think about revising this thing again...

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Moonwise - Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Workshoping:

Rejection from Clarkesworld

Dear Cynthia,

Thank you for the opportunity to read "On Fate's Waiting List." Unfortunately, your story isn't quite what we're looking for right now. Each month, we receive hundreds of submissions and while I may like many of them, I can only publish twelve of them per year.

In the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but I'm afraid that due to time considerations, we're no longer able to offer that service. I appreciate your interest in Clarkesworld Magazine and hope that you'll keep us in mind in the future.

Take care,

Neil Clarke
Publisher/Editor
Clarkesworld Magazine
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com


Simple form letter... but that's all Clarkesworld does anymore as I hear it.
__________________________________________________________
Currently Reading
Fantasy: Moonwise - Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

I've Submitted

I just submitted my story "On Fate's Waiting List" to Clarkesworld. They have a 36 hour average response time. I find this is making me more antsy about submitting than normal. Usually I just click send and try to forget about it, but this is going to come back to me so quickly I can't stop thinking about it. Thanksgiving isn't even helping.

Next story for me to work on is my world founding mythology story for Limna, the world in which my novel takes place.

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Moonwise - Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 1
Agent: 0

Workshoping:

Greater Portland Scribists: Writing Fears

Greater Portland Scribists: Writing Fears: "Former literary agent Nathan Bransford recently posted a question to writers on his blog: “What is your greatest fear as a writer?” I’m goi..."

I havn't abandoned this blog!

But, oh, have I been busy!

I've been working on this special project, and I haven't really talked about it here yet. I believe I mentioned it two months ago (?!?) in my last post. But I thought it was time to formally cross-blog about it.

A couple writer friends and I have put together a group, Greater Portland Scribists, or GPS. We meet weekly (yes that's why I've been so busy), to discuss our group progress, each other's writing and to write. Hopefully by next summer we will be able to produce an anthology ebook of our stuff. In the mean time we are keeping our blog up to date with ebook news and weekly (Wednesday) articles written by us. I just posted yesterday myself. Go read it!

Of course, I'm also still working on getting published in the magazines and will try to publish my novel after it is revised, which I will do after I have a short story published. And my 3 year plan is to become a member of SFWA.

So with all that going on, I've found myself kinda burnt out of my own writing goals. Time to change that. With winter coming, I think I'll be able to look inward and really get what I want, and soon. :)


Currently Reading
Fantasy: Moonwise - Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Workshoping:
On Fate's Waiting List

I've been writing

I've been working on the artisan story that got rejected by flash fiction online last March. I've given it a lot of thought and even workshopped it with my fellow scribists. It is now 6 pages long, and it ends. That's right. I wrote a short story that ends. And I really love the way it is turning out.

I'll be workshopping it with my meetup group, Rocketship Unicorn at the end of the month. And then hopefully submitting it.

Now I just need to work on rewriting my old story, The Making, from before Seton Hill. It's a creation myth and I've been recently inspired on how to end it :).

I feel a trend coming on.



Currently Reading
Fantasy: Brotherhood of the Wolf - David Farland
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy - Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I'm slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0
Workshoping:
Soul Starved

just something to keep me going...

“Genre is a matter of knowledge, which some people have (e.g. those writers who produce genre fiction and those readers who make their way through it) and other people don’t. It is impossible not just to write, but to market and sell and to review or read, a crime novel (for example) without a good understanding of the history of the genre and the various ways in which it has worked. Genre, in other words, has no time for naivety or ignorance.” –POPULAR FICTION by Ken Gelder