Josephine Damian

My 2009 Reading List

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:00:00 +0000

What I've read this year, so far....

1. Loser's Town - Daniel Depp

2. American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century - Howard Blum

3. Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous - Don Foster

4. Finding Nouf - Zoe Ferraris

5. Negotiating with the Dead - Margaret Atwood

6. The Twelve/The Ghosts of Belfast (ARC) - Stuart Neville

7. Safer - Sean Doolittle

8. The Music Lesson* - Katharine Weber - *a re-read and a worthy one at that

9. My Dark Places - James Ellroy

10. The Mongol Reply - Benjamin M. Schutz

11. The Wicked Pavilion - Dawn Powell

12. Fifty Dead Men Walking - Martin McGartland

13. Borderlands: An Inspector Devlin Mystery - Brian McGilloway

14. Molly Fox's Birthday - Deirdre Madden

15. Harry's Game - Gerald Seymour

16. The Collaborator of Bethlehem - Matt Beynon Rees

17. Henry and June: The Unexpergated Diary - 1931-1932 - Anais Nin

18. The Song is You - Arthur Phillips

19. Max Perkins: Editor of Genius - A. Scott Berg

20. The Rose of Sebastopol - Katharine McMahon

21. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

Fantasy author Robin Hobb on the evils of blogging for writers

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Jaye Welles turned me on to Robin Hobb's rant on why blogging is bad for writers.

It's something every blogging writer needs to read, and there's more than a little irony that I'm using my own blog to share it.

If Donald's comment about blogging scratches the writing itch didn't stop you in your tracks, this sure will.

Here's some highlights:

"Ah, my writer friend. It is harsh but it must be said. Compared to the studied seduction of the novel, blogging is literary pole dancing. Anyone can stand naked in the window of the public’s eye, anyone can twitch and writhe and emote over the package that was not delivered, the dinner that burned, the friend who forgot your birthday. That is not fiction. That is life, and we all have one. Blogging condemns us to live everyone else’s tedious day as well as our own.

"You and I, we are meant to write and edit and write again."

"My dear friend, writer of writers, esteemed teller of tales that no one else can tell, beware! Blogging is not writing. It masquerades as such, t’is true. You sit at the desk, your fingers dance their blind and clever dance across the keyboard, words appear upon the screen, and oh, it feels like writing, like the easiest sort of writing, the writing that needs not to be justified on the morrow. It is the writing that makes the idle stupidity of the day something of worth, for has it not been written down, have not readers shared it and responded to it? Have you not been recognized, flattered and preened for today’s bon mot? Is not that what the writer lives for?

"Remember that you are a storyteller...."

Here's the link to the rest: http://www.robinhobb.com/rant.html

The Wisdom According to Josie, or potent quotables and pithy maxims

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Wherein I share my thoughts on the writing life.

"If you marry your novel to real life events and people, you divorce your story from structure." - Josephine Damian

"From the Nobel Laureate to the wanna-be, un-published writer, the blank page is the great equalizer." - Josephine Damian

"All writers, great and small, all put the story on the page one word at a time." - Josephine Damian

"There are only two kinds of authors: those that are in it for the attention, and those that are in it for the writing." - Josephine Damian

"Authors go wrong when they write the book they want to write instead of the book they should write." - Josephine Damian

"Write with a mother's loving hand; edit with the iron fist of a strict disciplinarian." - Josephine Damian

"FINISHED" springs ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:21:00 +0000

On this morning when we put the clocks forward ((ugh!) my short story FINISHED was accepted for publication in the Oct. 15th issue of YELLOW MAMA.

The title has a double meaning - "finished" as in the culmination of sexual satisfaction and "finished" as in finished off - a euphamism for murder. Needless to say, it's an especially lurid and violent tale.

What, you expected a happy ending? From me? As if.

Much thanks to Yellow Mama's editor Cindy Rosmus for taking a chance on a story such as this.

http://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/yellowmama/index.html

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Kiss an Irish writer today!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:25:00 +0000

Each morning, when Orthodox and Conservative Jews say their daily blessings, the men among them recite the following prayer: Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, shelo asani ishah; "Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman."

Well, when I wake up each day I say, Thank you God for making me Irish. Seriously, if I have any success as a writer it'll be because I'm Irish and I believe this genetic dispostion gives me a leg-over the non-Irish wannabes.

I found this article today on why it helps to be Irish if you're a writer.

"I was checking the list of nations which have the greatest number of Nobel Prize winners per capita and Ireland comes in at number eight with 1.24502 Nobel Laureates per 1 million people, but of the ten winners four of these are in literature (and proving a pretty irony, the other half is almost exclusively for the Peace Prize) so I would argue that per capita there is no other nation that has a higher per capita number of Nobel Prize winners for literature.

"Add to this the plethora of outstanding Irish writers who did not win the prize, Jonathan Swift, Brendan Behan, J. M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Bram Stoker, James Joyce, and more recently Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Marina Carr, Colm Toibin and Patrick McCabe and you have a truly awe inspiring literary tradition that is perhaps unmatched for such a small nation that does not even write in its own native language much.

"But why are the Irish so good at telling stories? Is it because they like to exaggerate? Is it because they like a drink or is that just a symptom rather than a cause of any literary effort? Is it because are such a historically repressed people that literature is the valve that allows them to release those truths which social pressure makes it difficult to talk about? Or is it because they have all kissed the Blarney Stone?

"While all of Ireland’s most famous writers employ the language of their English conquerors, Ireland is also home to the oldest vernacular literature in Europe. As this website explains:

'When George Thomson, the great scholar of ancient Greece, went looking for a culture and a literature to match that of Homer, he found it in the writings of the Blasket Islands. A remote and desolate set of islands off the south west coast of Ireland, where they developed their own distinct literature in the first half of the twentieth century.'

"There may be no simple answer, but still, it’s a question worth considering today, the day the world turns green to honour the paddyman who rid the Irish nation of snakes."

Source: http://blogs.news.com.au/news/splat/index.php/news/comments/why_are_the_irish_such_good_writers/50921

Audrey Niffenegger Receives $5 Million Advance for Second Novel

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:31:00 +0000

And she doesn't blog or do any other form of social networking. All Ms. Niffenegger has is a (very cool) website: http://www.audreyniffenegger.com/

Five meeeeellion! And all without the time suck of online promoting. Know how she did it? She had a unique best-selling idea and had the skills and discipline to be able to write a story well-told. What a concept!

I so rest my case.

Read all about the big deal here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/books/11niff.html?_r=1&ref=books

Another blog post against blogging, or Why writers should just STFU and write

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:56:00 +0000

Saw this article linked on twitter about the hazards of authors putting themself too much out there for their fans via blogging. I thought it should have a wider audience.

Here's a brief bit:

"These days, writers invite personal involvement and intensity from their readers. In direct proportion to the way in which they share their personalities (or for-consumption personalities), their everyday lives, their football teams and word counts, their partners and children and cats, it encourages in readers a sense of personal connection and access, and thus an entitlement to comment, complain, recommend cat food, feel betrayed, shriek invective, issue demands."

Of course my favorite part is when the author calls out those two whiny attention whores Patricia Cornwell and Tess Gerritsen on how they summoned their fans to take up arms against those who dare post an honest critical review of their latest shitty release:

"Writers are on shaky ground if they want to be upset by readers feeling angry and posting their anger when authors are widely inviting that sense of pseudo-intimacy and intensity – and sometimes even employing their reader base as a weapon. “Release the fans!” seems to be the phrase that applies."

To read the rest of the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090306.wbkread07/BNStory/globebooks/home

My life in song titles: Kelly Clarkson version

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:07:00 +0000

OK, I said I would not do any more memes but this looked easy at first but proved challenging.

I’m only going to tag my main man, Brian Jay Jones aka Mr. Beatles Fan but anybody who wants to do it, feel free. Stuart Neville, my Prince of Darkness, I thought if you were in the mood to meme you might do a Van Halen version.

Using only song titles from ONE artist cleverly answer these questions.

Artist: Kelly Clarkson

1. Are U male or female? Miss Independence
2. Describe Yourself: Sober
3. How do you feel about yourself? I Hate Myself For Losing You
4. Describe where u currently live? Beautiful Disaster
5. If you could go anywhere, where would u go? Just Missed the Train
6.Your best friend is? Already Gone
7. Your favorite Color? Behind These Hazel Eyes
8. You Know that? The Trouble With Love Is
9. What's the weather like? Low (cold here today)
10. If your life was a T.v. show, what would it be called? You Thought Wrong
11. What is life like to You? Some Kind of Miracle
12.What is the best advice you have to give? Be Still
13.If you could change you name what would it be? Long Shot
14. Your Favorite food is? Can I Have a Kiss?

Change we can believe in...

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:57:00 +0000

In order to focus on writing, I’m going to be blogging less – a lot less – in 2009.

The only posts on this blog will be a list of books I’ve read in 2009 (meaning books I liked well enough to actually finish). The list will be on a single blog post, and as I finish each book and add it to the list, I’ll advance the date on the post. That way if you follow this blog, you should hopefully see that I’ve added to the one post – it’ll be the same post, but with added info. Comments will be still enabled here and if you want to ask if I’ve read a particular book, or want to chat about a book, you still can. At the end of 2009, I’ll do a “best of” series of blog posts, just as I did in 2008. Otherwise, that’s it.

My other blog, The Griffin Reviews, (http://thegriffinreviews.blogspot.com) will become my main and most active blog. If I especially like a book I’ve finished AND I have the time, I’ll review the book there. For those of you interested in reading my reviews, I’ve added the “follow this blog” gadget on my Griffin blog so you can see when a new review has been posted. More than anything, my goal was to be a respected reviewer, not a popular blogger and now that school's over, I have the time I need to write reviews.

I still patrol the blogosphere looking for cool writing advice and biz links, and instead of doing any more “No stone unturned” posts liked I used to I’ll be posting those links on Twitter (that alone is reason to join Twitter and follow me there).

If you want to know how I’m doing, how’s the writing coming, then Twitter is the place to keep up with all things Josie. And I much prefer getting a short and sweet tweet from you than an email.

Are you getting the message that I’ll being mostly hanging out on Twitter as opposed to Blogger?

More than anything, I hope to be spending most of my time with the muse and cutting back – way back – on blogging seems to be the best way to do so. You all remember Donald's famous words of wisdom, don't you? (click on Donald's photo in the blogroll in case you need to be reminded).

The Best of the Best of 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Here's why this book was the best of the best this year:

http://thegriffinreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/prayer-for-dying-stewart-onan.html

Best Books of 2008 - Mystery/Crime Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:00:00 +0000

No surprise, the best mystery/crime novel I read in 2008 was (1) a classic, (2) written by a European. What earned this book the top spot was that it’s character driven, with a strong sense of place, and at the same time, a complex puzzle. But what made it really stand out was the shocker ending (I sure as hell did not see it coming).

TO EACH HIS OWN is a traditional amateur detective drama that starts when the town pharmacist, on the eve of the opening of hunting season, receives a death threat in the mail. "This letter is your death sentence. To avenge what you have done you will die." But Manno, the man who receives the warning, is convinced he has done no wrong and dismisses the letter as a joke. The next day, he and his hunting companion, Dr. Roscio, are found shot to death. After a cursory investigation by the town marshal, there are no obvious suspects and no obvious motives until Professor Lauranna, a literary minded schoolteacher who still lives with his mother, spots a clue in the letter that the police had dismissed. He decides to investigate the crime himself – more out of need for some intellectual distraction than out of a sense for justice. As he digs deeper, this curious and repressed mamma’s boy discovers that the motive for murder lies in the town’s politics as well as in family loyalty. Since the setting is a small town in Sicily, secrets, lies, collusion and violence penetrate every single aspect of life, especially family and politics, and because of this, the ending is shockingly unexpected for the genre.One reviewer wrote: There are wonderfully credible villains and personal betrayals, but the big achievement of the book is to portray a whole society which accepts, condones and even fosters the most appalling crimes with a sense of inevitability rivaling the chorus in a Greek tragedy.

The New York Review of Books recently reprinted "To Each His Own" under its "classics" issues. A word of caution--the edition published by the New York Review of Books has a wonderful introduction to the novel in the beginning. Save this for after you have read the book. While the introduction is good, it gives too much of the plot away!

The runner-up: During the summer, while compiling my “big read” list I was looking up info on the author of a comic novel I read a long time ago. To my surprise, I saw he’d written a well-reviewed mystery series, so I took a chance and purchased the first two in this series. What impressed me was that Michael Malone had such a loyal following his fans didn’t even care if he took 8 years to write the next installment.

More than anything it’s Malone voice that shines through along with a complex plot and large group of characters that are forged from the distinctly North Carolina setting.

Here’s the description from Amazon:
The polite Piedmont town of Hillston, North Carolina, wants to go on believing it is still too temperate to require homicide experts. But when the wife of a state senator is found beaten to death, the inner circle of Hillston’s ruling families arranges to have the case assigned to Detective Justin Savile, the charming black sheep of the dynasty that founded the town.

Aided by his wise-cracking, working-class partner, Cuddy Magnum, and a young woman from the Carolina mountains whose strength and love rescues him from his own destructive impulses, Savile sets out to unravel the deceit hidden in Hillston’s past. His obsessive pursuit of one of this own and his determination to save a petty thief from being railroaded for murder not only lead to other deaths, but bring the detective very near to losing his own life. With striking humor and a rich range of characters, Malone creates a landscape struggling the New South’s high-tech lifestyles and the Old South’s inherited codes.

Two other mystery/crime standouts from this year’s reading list were:

In my next post I’ll reveal the best book I’ve read this year.

Best Books of 2008 - Literary Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:10:00 +0000

The best literary novel I read this year was, of course, a classic: The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott. You can read my review here:

http://thegriffinreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/pilgrim-hawk-love-story-glenway-wescott.html

During my blog hiatus, at the literary world awaited the announcement of this year’s Nobel prize winner, the American blogosphere was up in arms over a comment made by the academy’s secretary Horace Engdahl when he said it’s no coincidence that most winners are European, adding, “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States,” he told The Associated Press.

Guess what? He’s right. As a mostly literary reader, I’m appalled by what badly written drek American publishers are pawning off these days as “literary.” The majority of modern American “literary” titles I attempted to read this year would have been shelved in the “general fiction” section of a 1970s bookstore (the section for non-genre/ non-commercial books that were light on plot and written in prose that was, at best, pedestrian – basically by today’s shameful American standards what is called “literary”.)

From now on I’m only reading literary classics by American authors, and if I do finish a literary novel written in the 21rst century, the odds are it will be written by a foreigner. Which brings me to the runner-up title in the literary category.

This summer, I happened to catch some book talk on NPR when two novels by Asian writers were being touted. One was Mosquito by Sri Lankan-born author Roma Tearne (still on my TBR list!) and the other was The Gift of Rain by Penang-born Tan Twan Eng. Gift is epic in scope, and at the same time exquisite in its details; the scenes with the fireflies alone are worth the price of admission. For these reasones, I’ve been recommending this book to all my literary reading friends.

Here’s copy and paste from a review by Kristianne Huntsberger:

This is Eng's ambitious first novel, addressing duty, control and the complicated nature of fate on the painful backdrop of World War II. Philip is the child of a British and Chinese marriage. His mixed parentage prevents him full permission into either the British or the Chinese communities of his Malayan home, Penang. In a moment of full isolation Philip discovers the friendship of his neighbor, Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat and skilled aikidōka. Their fondness for each other is instant and profound. Endo instructs Philip in Aikido and Zazen, and Philip tours Endo around Malaya, offering a native son's knowledge of the island. When the tensions of war and betrayal test their relationship, Philip discovers the true depth of the commitment he has made to his teacher.

Living between the divided worlds of his British and Chinese families and his notorious involvement with the Japanese, Philip is perpetually suspended someplace in between, like rain falling between the earth and sky. Under Endo's instruction Philip learns slowly to maneuver his skill and his restraint. Eng likewise maneuvers, ebbing between skillfully crafted and sometimes exhaustively sentimental prose. By taping into his extensive first-hand knowledge of aikido and Malaysia, Eng offers a rich and experiential story. His storytelling is refreshing because he accepts the appropriate complexity of his characters' sensations and the emotional ambiguity of war. Trust and commitment are tested and there no easy solutions for deciphering the loyalty and intentions of another person.

So, have you read The Gift of Rain yet? Do you have any recommendations for me, some literary titles NOT written by an American?

Up next, I’ll post my top crime/mystery selections.

Best Books of 2008 - Non-fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:00:00 +0000

During the summer when news broke of a group of Colombian hostages being freed in a stunning rescue, a group that included a woman who was running for president at the time of her capture, I remembered I had a non-fiction book that had been in my TBR pile for ten years – TEN FREAKIN’ YEARS! – about similar Colombian kidnappings, ones that preceded the incident that everybody was talking about.

Fascinated by the ordeal and strength of Ingrid Betancourt, I chased away the silverfish crawling between the pages and blew the dust off my copy of NEWS OF A KIDNAPPING, written by that former journalist, you know, the guy with the Nobel in Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I got busy finally reading it.

Here’s a copy and paste of a summary I found online:

Gabriel García Márquez was approached by his friends Maruja Pachón de Villamizar and Alberto Villamizar in 1993 to write a book about the ordeal surrounding Maruja's abduction. García Márquez recalls that he was working on the first draft when he realized "it was impossible to separate her kidnapping from nine other abductions that occurred at the same time in Colombia." García Márquez decided to broaden his work to include the stories of all these captives, which lengthened the project to almost three years. The result is News of a Kidnapping, which was first published in Spanish in 1996 and in English the following year. In this work, García Márquez takes on the gargantuan task of describing the kidnappings and captivity of ten people. He depicts their families' reactions to these events as well as their efforts to free the hostages, but also attempts to place the entire incident in the context of Colombia's longstanding war on drugs and terrorism in general.

The fame of García Márquez—a Nobel Laureate—guaranteed that the American press would pay immediate and close attention to the work. Moreover, the drug problems of Colombia and the United States were—and remain so today—intertwined. The threat of extradition to the United States drove Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín cartel, to order the kidnappings. However, it is to García Márquez's credit that he roots News of a Kidnapping firmly within Colombian soil, for the violence that the drug industry has wrought upon Colombian society is astronomical, indeed, hardly comprehensible to Americans. News of a Kidnapping depicts a world almost as surreal as any of García Márquez's novels, one that may shock American readers but one all too well-known to Colombians.

Having years ago read Gabo’s barely fictionalized account of a murder in his home town: CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD (a book a highly recommend), it came as no surprise at what a taught and dramatic page-turner NEWS turned out to be. For that reason, NEWS gets my top pick for the best non-fiction title this year.

The older I get, the more my reading tastes lean to non-fiction, and I read quite a few non-fiction titles in 2008. It won’t be long before fiction falls into the minority of books I read.

However, if it hadn’t been for that long-overlooked gem from my TBR pile, it would be Brian Jay Jones wearing the crown this year for his outstanding biography, WASHINGTON IRVING: AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL. If you haven’t already seen my review (or better yet, bought this book) click here:
http://thegriffinreviews.blogspot.com/2008/05/washington-irving-american-original.html

So, readers, how old is the oldest book in your TBR pile? And by that I mean: What is the longest number of years you’ve let a book lay around, unread?

Up next, I'll post my top choice for the best literary novel I read in 2008.

Best Books of 2008 - What I Read This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:01:00 +0000

This year I attempted to read 120+ books, but for a variety of reasons, I found most of these books were unable to hold my attention for very long (many of these books lost me in the first few pages).

This time last year, I decided to keep track of not only the number of books I tried to read, and ask myself why I stopped reading a particular book, but also make note of whether or not the books were written in the 21rst or 20th century (early and more modern), or were written prior to the 20th century. I called it "The 2008 Author Challenge" and did many a blog post throughout the year citing books I stopped reading, and why I stopped reading -posts that struck fear in many an author!

What surprised me most was how many beloved classics - the "greats of literature" -flat out sucked! (Nabokov! Christie! Forester! Seriously!) But overall, I found the majority of books written since 2000 that I attempted to read came up short. I could not finish them. This confirmined my fear that very little of what is being written these days, especially by American authors, is worth reading, and supports my plan to read few, if any, books written in the 21rst century. If I do, no doubt they will be written by non-Americans.

The 22 books that I liked well enough to actually finish in 2008 are as follows:

Fiction:

The Gift of Rain - Tan Twan Eng
Senselessness - Horacio Castellanos Moya
A Partisan's Daughter - Louis De Bernieres
Uncivil Seasons - Michael Malone
The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
A Prayer for the Dying - Stewart O'Nan
The Pilgrim Hawk - Glenway Wescott
The Waitress Was New - Domininque Fabre
The Executor: A Comedy of Letters - Michael Kruger
Baby Shark - Robert Fate
The Blue Rose - Anthony Eglin
The Ghosts of Belfast - Stuart Neville
Queenpin - Megan Abbott
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
To Each His Own - Leonardo Sciascia
The Keep - Jennifer Egan

Non-fiction:

The Monster of Florence - Douglas Preston, Mario Spezi
News of a Kidnapping - Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow - A Memoir - Harriet Wasserman
Greene on Capri: A Memoir - Shirley Hazzard
Washington Irving: An American Original - Brian Jay Jones
The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp

So, have you read any of these books? Do you think the quality of books is on the decline? I sure do, and of course I blame Internet use (see my Internet addiction posts to read how the Internet is re-wiring our brains, especially our reading and writing ability).

In my next few posts I’ll talk up my favorites among this select group and announce the one book that was the absolute best of the bunch.

Jeff Abbott, Twyla Tharp and The Organized Writer

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:42:00 +0000

Agent Nathan Bransford deserves the credit for steering us to a series of blog posts done by best-selling author Jeff Abbott. Since it’s that time of year to evaluate your life and re-group, a series called “The Organized Writer” is especially timely.

Here’s just a sample of the subjects covered in this must-read series: Making Time to Write, Order vs Freedom, Research, Procrastination, and Daily Routines.

Jeff starts his series by saying, “I've been thinking a lot about creativity and good habits lately. I always sort of do an end-of-year review: what did I get done, how quickly and effectively did I do it, could I have made better use of my creative time (here I tend to be my own worst critic). This has been more involved this year, because I've been working on multiple projects and have become more conscious than usual about the relationship between creativity and time. This is also a time where I plan out my work and my time for the next year--which can result in trying out new systems and techniques. Those can either spell more productivity for me, or they could be a waste of time.

“Twyla Tharp, the legendary choreographer, has written a book I've only just learned about called The Creative Habit. You can read the first chapter here:

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=502946&agid=2

“What she writes about in facing “the white room” applies to any creative endeavor: starting a novel, drawing a cartoon, redesigning a room, taking a photograph, inventing a game to play with your child. I can't wait to read this book, because there is a world of truth in its title. Creativity is a habit. But developing this habit is hard, and as Tharp notes, making the attempt can be paralyzing for some people.

“So--I'm going to be writing a short series here on the blog about how to get into that creative habit. In other words, how to be an organized writer.”

Others around the blogosphere who commented on Jeff’s blog have been talking about Tharp’s book but without giving credit to Jeff as the source. I’m reading The Creative Habit myself now, and will be posting a review later on. Much thanks first to Nathan and then Jeff for steering me toward Tharp’s book.

Here’s a link to the ongoing Organizer Writer series: http://207.56.179.67/jeff_abbott/the-organized-writer/

Jeff Abbott is the international-bestselling, award-winning author of ten mystery and suspense novels. Jeff's novels have been called "exciting, shrewd, and beautifully crafted" (Chicago Tribune), "fresh, original... intricately woven" (Publishers Weekly), "nail-bitingly suspenseful and totally original" (Irish Independent) and "excellent" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). He is published in twenty languages and has been a bestseller in the US, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, Portugal, and other countries.

Jeff's short stories have been anthologized in collections such as Best American Mystery Stories and The World's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.

His novels Panic and Collision have been optioned for film and are in script development.

So, writers, are you feeling the need to make some serious changes to your creative habits in 2009?

See my blogroll for links to two books that have been a huge help for me in making more time to write.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:34:00 +0000

As Christmas carols fill the air with joy and merriment,

as the chime of church bell echoes all around,

and prayers reach out to God,

I wish you a joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thomas Nelson Publisher Mike Hyatt talks book promotion.

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Earlier this year I had my now famous conversation with Agent Donald Maass about online promoting for authors. During our “sit down” he placed his palms a few inches apart and said: “It’s what’s between a book’s covers that sells the book and nothing else.” Some may consider that view at bit extreme, but....

Michael Hyatt, President & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers has started a blog series on Book Marketing. Echoing Donald’s sentiment, he went so far to have a button made up for his employees to wear:

This is the beginning of a series of posts he is calling, “Book Marketing 101: What Works and What Doesn’t.” Part 1: Start with Great Content.

Regarding that famous button, Mr. Hyatt said: “I am still convinced that this is the most fundamental truth about publishing. It all starts by acquiring great manuscripts.”

He goes on to say: “But we have to be careful how we define “great product.” I am not referring to a book’s literary merit, scholarly research, or enduring value. Instead, I am talking about the book’s commercial viability.”

To read the rest of the post, click here:

http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/2008/12/book-marketing.html

And be sure to keep an eye out for the rest of the posts in this must-read series.

Dear Santa, I want this for Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Stylish and morbidly creepy! If only they had cool Barbies like this when I was a kid.

But Santa, if you run out of Barbies you can always get me the Edgar Allen Poe and Bride dolls:

Happy Birthday Travis Erwin!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:01:00 +0000

Today is Travis Erwin's birthday! Yes, the king o' the blogosphere, Mr. My Town himself is another year older today. So let's all celebrate with a piece of some PLUNDERED BOOTY cake.

Of course we all know his lettuce-hating self rather have some of this >>>>

And wash it down with this dark ale >>>>>>

Be sure to wish Travis a happy birthday here in JD Land and participate in a Travis-themed roast contest and post your answers in the comments section.

The sole winner will be chosen by Travis. The prize is this: I'll send you the ARC of one of the hottest 2009 debuts: LOSER'S TOWN by Daniel Depp (he was signed by none other than Donald Maass and got a very sweet book deal, indeed).

The roast questions:

1. Who was responsible for Travis joining Twitter?
2. Where are Travis and his family going on Christmas Day?
3. How many wives did Travis have at the Halloween party? (I want a specific number).
4. How did he get that glitter all over his sack? :-O
5. Last X-mas Travis and Josie made up alternative lyrics to a popular X-mas song. What was the name of that song?
Bonus question!
6. What is the evening activity that most people do, but Travis does not? (or only on occassion, and then with regret for having done so).

I'll keep the contest open for 48 hours cause Travis might actually want to spend some time with his family on his B-day and not just hang out here.

Master of the Domain!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:10:00 +0000

It’s official. I have earned a master’s degree in Criminal Forensic Studies: Behavioral Analysis. Sociopaths are my specialty. Yup, I am now a profiler. No more cooking corpses for me! I’d rather stare down a live bad guy than make a putrid soup out of some stinky dead victim. Been there. Done that. Bought the lab coat (For sale – cheap! – badly stained).

And profiling is a lot like writing – figure out what motivates someone to do something, and this helps you figure out what kind of background must they have had to turn out that way and do that sort of thing – the very essence of Debra Dixon’s GOAL, MOTIVATION, CONFLICT.

I started blogging around the same I started grad school 2 ½ years ago and I saw there were quite a few writer/bloggers that were getting their MFA or PhD with a novel as their final project. For the most part, they seem to have no trouble finishing school. But I also came across several writer/bloggers (and many others in the real world) who were in grad school for some other subject besides writing. With very few exceptions, they dropped out – they felt they had to choose between completing a novel and the demands of grad school, as did I.

Most of these writers were working on their first novel and maybe that was the big difference between them and me – I already had several completed projects when I decided to go to school. Still, I say they made the wrong choice. First novels rarely sell, and once you drop out of school, it’s REALLY hard to drop back in.

Yes, there wasn’t a day I didn’t resent school for keeping me from the focus I certainly needed to write a novel, but I knew even if the economy was going gang busters and people made reading books a priority (as opposed to web surfing or a gazillion

other “reasons” we’ve all stopped reading), I knew an advanced degree would mean greater job opportunities (forensics is the new plastics, you know, and as cops say, “Business is always good.”), because even as a published author the odds of my making a living at it are slim.

And do I like to hope that having an advanced degree in any field would give agents the impression that a writer was capable of meeting deadlines, completing a large writing project under the supervision of someone you have to listen to (even if you don’t always agree), and that writer is disciplined enough to set a difficult goal and obtain it.

School has given me several ideas for some non-fiction projects and my degree now gives me the credibility I need to write them. On top of that, the subject of my master’s thesis: the neurobiology of sociopaths, will be part of the plot of a future novel: WHAT THE MIND INHERITS (see blogroll).

So, unpublished writers, if you’re in school and torn between writing fiction and having to do yet another tedious homework assignment, fiction will be there waiting for you after you graduate. And published mid-listers, if you decide to go back to school to get an advanced degree or if you’re already in school and stick it out, you’ll be so much better of financially in the long term by furthering your education than if you wrote another book that won’t earn you a living any way.

And having a job – a life – outside of writing helps you cope all the better with the vagaries of a very difficult business.

ETA: TOMORROW - SUNDAY - IS TRAVIS ERWIN'S BIRTHDAY! So be sure to stop back here for some cake, steak and beer!

Next week, I'll post my Best Books of 2008 choices.

On hiatus....

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Starting today I'll be on blog hiatus in order to finish up grad school.

I recently recieved an email from my grad school advisor that contained the following:

"Greetings,
There are only 2 months until Commencement. I suspect this scares you more than me. The 8 of you are enrolled in Integrative Project and therefore, I am assuming you are planning on graduating. Under that assumption, I thought we should probably go over my expectations for your manuscript....."

".... your manuscript must be a professional publication. Consequently, it MUST be perfect."

"I will not jeopardize my professionalism by letting someone 'slide'."

Fuck.

Guess I better be prepared for his sending me back to the drawing board on that thesis. I also have a term paper to start...er, finish for one of my other classes.

Since most of my blog peeps will be smoking that NaNoWriMo crack this month - this looks like a really good time to take a break since all your blog posts will be reduced to "4937 words today! Woot!"

But it won't be all work for Josie D. I'll be hanging out with this guy for a few days this month. You remember him, don't you? Mr. Scratch-the-itch!

I'll be back to blogging - but not for long - on December 20th wherein I'll talk up tips for fighting the Internet demon and how to make time to write, I'll discuss the best books I've read this year, do a wrap up off the 2008 author challenge, and let you know about my plans for 2009 - assuming I graduate - big assumption!

And on Tuesday don't forget to vote early, vote often, for Obama!

President-Elect Obama!

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Yes, we can!

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

The Tempest - William Shakespeare -

Josephine Damian's Big Read

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:10:00 +0000

Over the summer, Moonrat posted a list from “The Big Read,” an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts. They estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed and asked how many of them had you read? (I’d read 25 of their listed titles) You can read that list here: http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2008/06/big-read-meme-ish.html

This prompted me to come up with my own list of must read books. I'll ask you all the same question: How many of these books have you read? Maybe what I should ask is: How many of these books have you even heard of? lol (I deliberately left off the obvious must-read classics by the Russians, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dickens, etc. on the assumption that you read them in school.)

1. Atonement - Ian McEwan
2. The Deptford Trilogy - Robertson Davies
3. The Professor's House - Willa Cather
4. Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
5. Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
7. Loitering with Intent - Murial Spark
8. Turn, Magic Wheel - Dawn Powell
9. Lying Awake - Mark Salzman
10. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
11. The Alienist - Caleb Carr
12. The Defense – Vladimir Nabokov
13. The Wings of the Wind - Ronald Hardy
14. A Prayer for the Dying - Stewart O’Nan
15. Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane
16. My Cousin Rachel - Daphne Du Maurier
17. The Information – Martin Amis
18. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
19. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
20. The Music Lesson - Katherine Weber
21. Light of Falling Stars - J. Robert Lennon
22. Harbor - Lorraine Adams
23. The Book of Salt - Monique Truong
24. Embers - Sandor Marai
25. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie
26. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
27. Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
28. Flaubert’s Parrot - Julian Barnes
29. A Star Called Henry - Roddy Doyle
30. The Good Brother - Chris Offutt
31. Lost in Translation - Nicole Mones
32. Old School - Tobias Woolf
33. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
34. The Good Soldier - Ford Maddox Ford
35. The Pilgrim Hawk - Glenway Wescott
36. A Widow for One Year – John Irving
37. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier - Thad Carhart
38. Headlong - Michael Frayn
39. The Club Dumas - Arturo Perez-Reverte
40. The Prestige - Christopher Priest
41. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
42. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller
43. The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
44. Washington Irving: An American Original - Brian Jay Jones
45. To Each His Own - Leonardo Sciascia
46. Possession – A. S. Byatt
47. Beloved – Toni Morrison
48. Sabbath’s Theatre – Philip Roth
49. Billy Bathgate – E. L. Doctorow
50. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
51. The Love Artist – Jane Alison
52. Body and Soul – Frank Conroy
53. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
54. Andorra – Pete Cameron
55. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murkami
56. The Death of Vishnu – Manil Suri
57. The Lover – Margueritte Duras
58. Moon Tiger – Penelope Lively
59. Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
60. A Venetian Affair – Andrea di Robliant
61. Under Western Eyes – Joseph Conrad
62. Blood Ties – Jennifer Lash
63. The Swimming Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
64. Paula – Isabel Allende
65. The Collector – John Fowles
66. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
67. Kill Me First – Kate Morganroth
68. The Grand Complication – Allan Kurzweil
69. The Marriage of the Sea – Jane Alison
70. Foolscap; Or, the Stages of Love – Michael Malone
71. A River Runs Through It – Norman MacLean
72. Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy
73. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Hoeg
74. Ironweed – William Kennedy
75. The Bird Artist – Howard Norman
76. News of a Kidnapping – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
77. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
78. The Woman Who Walked into Doors – Roddy Doyle
79. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
80. The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
81. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
82. Jazz – Toni Morrison
83. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
84. Case Histories: A Novel - Kate Atkinson
85. The Color of Water – James McBride
86. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
87. The Far Pavilions – M. M. Kaye
88. Brasil - John Updike

89. Gorky Park: A Novel -Martin Cruz Smith

90. Three Men in a Boat: (To Say Nothing of the Dog) - Jerome K. Jerome

91. Morality Play - Barry Unsworth

92. The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett

93. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

94. Love and War in the Apennines - Eric Newby

95-100 All the Alice McDermott books!

Anyone notice how few of these books were written in the 21rst Century? Anyone notice how few modern American books made my list?

The Paper Cuts chronicles: Writers talk Internet use - February edition

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:16:00 +0000

This is a new post - not a repeat post!

Over on the NYTimes Paper Cuts blog, Dwight Garner asks writers some STRAY QUESTIONS, which are not so stray since he asks everyone the same set of questions. A question he asks is one that I think is relevant to the Internet addiction series is:

“How much time — if any — do you spend on the Web? Is it a distraction or a blessing?"

Methinks he asks this because he too wonders if the Internet is a good witch, or a bad witch, and is looking for validation for his own opinion that it is, of course, both. So I’ve gone through the archives and culled the answers. Here are the February 2008 author replies:

Douglas Coupland’s most recent novel is “The Gum Thief.”

As much as anyone else these days — which is probably too much. We just now have the equivalent of Tivo in Canada, so between it, hand-helds and the Web, free time is radically different than it was even five years ago. The future now feels futuristic.

Without hesitation the Web is a blessing, but you know what I miss? Reference librarians. I used to live in the reference library but it’s now been over a year since I’ve visited one. They must be doing a lot of sudoku puzzles at their desks these days.

Sean Wilsey is the author of “Oh the Glory of It All,” a memoir.

I got incredibly distracted by working on a Web site (ohtheglory.com) that supplemented my first book, a memoir, with video. A big part of the book concerned my mom’s quixotic quest to bring about peace by taking children around the world to meet with various heads of state. And so my home movies are of Helmut Kohl, Gorbachev, Indira Gandhi, the pope. I was probably on the Web for a couple hours a day working on this. But, really, the Web’s a time suck. Whenever I physically unplug it I get so much more work done, and feel so much more alive, like a real human being, and a writer, rather than (to steal somebody’s line) a typer. That said, I also find it really useful.

Clive James’s most recent book is “Cultural Amnesia.”

I practically live on the thing, because my multi-media Web site is growing like a crocodile and I’m always on the lookout for great stuff I can link through to. The Web site is a blessed distraction from writing books, but it demands a lot of writing on its own account. Every hour of daylight that I’m not working on my books I spend online. And then there’s the night, when I sit there illuminated by the computer until its blue light fades at dawn.

Ilan Stavans’s books include “On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language” and “The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories.”

The Web is an integral part of me - who I am, where I go, what I do. My dialogue with the outside world (is there one?) and with myself (is there an eye behind the “I”?) takes place though this monitor and keyboard. They are my extremities. A distraction? No more so that the business of being happy in life. Without it, the speed of my thoughts would be comparatively slooooooower.

Wow. Some very differing POV's here re: the web. Interesting.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman

noreply@blogger.com (Josephine Damian) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:01:00 +0000

Today is my birthday. Instead of posting a photo of the current me, I thought I'd post a self -portrait I did when I was 17.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this essay in The New Yorker about prodigies, late - bloomers and writing/creativity:

Here's a taste: David Galenson points out in his study “Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity.” Yes, there was Orson Welles, peaking as a director at twenty-five. But then there was Alfred Hitchcock, who made “Dial M for Murder,” “Rear Window,” “To Catch a Thief,” “The Trouble with Harry,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” and “Psycho”—one of the greatest runs by a director in history—between his fifty-fourth and sixty-first birthdays. Mark Twain published “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” at forty-nine. Daniel Defoe wrote “Robinson Crusoe” at fifty-eight.

Galenson quotes the literary critic Franklin Rogers on Twain’s trial-and-error method: “His routine procedure seems to have been to start a novel with some structural plan which ordinarily soon proved defective, whereupon he would cast about for a new plot which would overcome the difficulty, rewrite what he had already written, and then push on until some new defect forced him to repeat the process once again.” Twain fiddled and despaired and revised and gave up on “Huckleberry Finn” so many times that the book took him nearly a decade to complete. The Cézannes of the world bloom late not as a result of some defect in character, or distraction, or lack of ambition, but because the kind of creativity that proceeds through trial and error necessarily takes a long time to come to fruition.

Here's the entire essay: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all