I’m changing things up a bit this week. Instead of having three books in rotation–a work read, a fun read, and a me read–I’m going with just the two.
After several weeks, I’ve finally finished my work read Writing for Emotional Impact on Kindle. The book is chock-full of fantastic writing tips on eliciting emotion via dialogue, context, and word choice. There’s also basic writing advice on theme, scene structure and character.
With it taking me so long to read and make notes, I need a break from reading about the craft of writing–for a week, if I can last that long–so I can let what I’ve learned sink in. (That just means more time to read my other books!)
[FYI: The book links are free from affiliate codes.]
The Fun Read
Still Lake by Anne Stuart
I’m around 25% of the way through Still Lake, and I’m loving it. Well, I’m not loving the heroine’s constant baking… I want the muffins! I don’t care that it’s fiction or that I’m in bed, give me the damned muffins.
The story so far is intriguing and so vividly told (without lengthy descriptions, yay!) that it’s like watching a movie. As I get deeper into the story and learn more about the decades-old murders, I’m left with more questions about the crimes and the hero’s past.
Still Lake on Kobo (£1.49 on Kobo)
Still Lake on Kindle (£1.49 on Kindle)
The Me-Time Read
I didn’t get a chance to read this book last week, but I hope to remedy that now the work read isn’t dominating my reading time.
A Spy’s Guide to Strategy on Kindle (£4.63 or free with Kindle Unlimited)
What are your reading plans for the next week…
Until next time, take care, and happy reading!
I’m getting curious about the book by Karl Iglesias…
When I did improv theater according to the method of The Fool’s Way, I learned a few things about emotional story telling by doing. For example: we used our own aspects and emotions as masks to play on stage and we found out that masks which are on stage but not being played out can jump onto the audience. I suppose those methods also work in writing and it sounds very interesting to learn more about these things.
Enjoy your fun-time and me-time and let the newly learned stuff sink-in in ease and grace!
(And never mind the typos – I don’t know where those are coming from, today, but everything takes double as long to type as I have to read though all of it like 2 – 3 times before sending.)
It’s so odd you mention masks and acting, he uses examples of that in the book! Oh, there are lots of examples to help illustrate his points to make it easier to understand–I need loads of examples.
(I think my editor eyes are off today, as I can’t see any typos–your’s or mine. If it makes you feel any better, I put mine through Grammarly sometimes and even then it can go wrong. I pasted a comment on my favourite author’s blog and all the paragraph breaks disappeared, so it looks like one big blob of crazy.🤣 )
Funny! – I thought it will probably sound crazy and off topic when I mention those masks – and then I remembered how in our conversations those things always seem to be the ones that turn out to be spot on.
Typos: Whenever I commented on some famous person’s post, I later noticed mistakes I never make – including writing their names wrong, so: I hear you! ☺😂 – Maybe I managed to iron out all those typos above after the tenth re-read…? I mean, miracles do happen!
P.S.: Editor eyes… that’s definitely a handy super power (one I don’t have)!
I think we’re on a weird, but brilliant frequency!
Editor superpower came from doing a proofreading and copy-editing course–I did NOT have the power before that. 😂
Weird is guid – syne A learnt the meanin in the Scots A lik hit even mair!
I still consider editing a super power. Every superpower needs to be mastered, first.
Mastered and tended–I sometimes forget the tending part. ☺️
Good point!!
(Me too, with some of my superpowers)
Now I’m intrigued… what are your other superpowers?
I think, the one that needs most maintenance, presently, is my alchemistic power to turn 💩 into gold. There’s lots of the former going on, so riches await! 😂
And the others… Well, I’m sure we will find out about each other’s superpowers rather sooner than later, given our briliantly weird frequency of communication. 💗
When you get your alchemistic powers up to the task you’ll have to give me lessons! Just send them through our frequency 💖
Will do! 💗
Testing … not sure if my comments are getting through. (I think we might broke it… 😂)
Aha! There you go. What I originally wanted to say was:
Will do!! 💗
👍
I think I nudged it wrong 😜
Stefanie Neumann: liked this. via twitter.com
Relax with your fun reads, Susan! I’ve almost finished the Jasper Fforde. Meanwhile, in the background I’ve been reading “The Writer’s Lexicon Volume II: More Descriptions, Overused Words, and Taboos” by Kathy Steinamann – useful for crisping up my prose (and entertaining too), and “Word Craft: Prose & Poetry: The Art of Crafting Syllabic Poetry by Colleen M. Chesebro” – researching into different forms of poetry and trying to get some discipline and order into my Monday poems.
Oh, I’ve seen The Writer’s Lexicon in my recommendations. How is it? I assume now that you’re on Vol II that you liked the first one…
Are you finding any overlap/transferable information from the poetry book to your fiction?
I’ve got all three Writer’s Lexicon books. I actually won them in a competition which Kathy ran. It was very generous of her to honour the prize, too. They must have cost a fortune to send all the way from Canada. They are a useful reference – I’ve been using them like a thesaurus mostly. They also came in handy when I was doing some editing for another author at the end of last year.
Since the poetry book is about form, I haven’t really seen must crossover to fiction writing, although anything which makes you think about words and structure has to have benefit.
My review of Kathy’s first Writer’s Lexicon is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4370759878?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
What a great prize, and an amazing lady for sending all the way from Canada!
I’ll definitely take a look at them when I’m next in the Kobo store.
Mmmm, muffins 😋