Bookmarks and Birding

During my last post, I was busy everyday with creative writing, now I'm back to reading at a furious pace...and bird watching. In order to justify my time spent with the birds, I'm taking photos of them, and then having my husband design bookmarks using my photos. That way, I can combine my interests of reading and birding. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Here's the first bookmark that has been printed up (Overnight Prints). I got 30 bookmarks (with UV coating) for $6.95 + shipping. Turnaround time was fast, and bookmarks were shipped FedEx. Not too bad, in my opinion.

Back to writing prompts

While I'm researching for my upcoming thesis, I've been slacking in the creative writing department. I found a great website called The Write Practice that focuses on writing for the sake of the writing craft, and they offer a free ebook called 14 Prompts.

Basically, it gives you a pep talk and then a prompt. You write non-stop for thirty minutes using the prompt, and then put it away. The idea is to keep you writing daily, especially if you aren't sure what direction you want to go creatively.

Good writing doesn't just happen, it is something that is developed. The more you do it, the better you become (theoretically). Talent is 20% (or less) and hard work (practice) is 80%.

Using the first prompt from the free ebook, I wrote for 30 minutes, which ended up being a little over 1,000 words (4 pages or so). I didn't read what I had written, and probably won't until I'm finished with all 14 prompts.

When you don't know what to write, just write. That's my new motto.

Where I'm going...

I began the new year with bronchitis, and I can't seem to break out of the funk of being sick. I sit down to write, but find myself wandering to other tasks instead. I've been reading new books (and old), but I feel guilty for not writing. I lost my Grandfather on Thanksgiving Day, and my Grandmother has been in the hospital, so needless to say, my mind has been elsewhere. After my Grandfather passed away, I began to write about my memories of him, which turned out to be a good way of dealing with my grief,  but since Christmas, I've slowed down...almost skidded to a halt.

The weather has been ridiculous over the past couple of months, alternating between warm days (70 degrees) and cool days (39 degrees). It rained for 4 days straight until it flooded, and then snowed on Thursday, shutting down schools and roads. The snow began to melt before the day was up. Mother Nature's mood swings are reflecting my own. Up and down, unable to decide where to be and how long to be there. Grief is the writer's bane, or it has been mine anyway.

Sometime next month, I will be choosing classes for my last summer at the Sewanee School of Letters. I'm forced to take Shakespeare and a literature in translation course, and I (unwisely) saved those two classes for last. As sacrilegious as it sounds, I'm not a Shakespeare fan, but perhaps this summer will cure me. It will either cure me or make me hate Shakespeare more, one way or the other. I can't tell you why I don't like Shakespeare. Maybe it's because I despise plays? I don't mind his sonnets, just the plays (the major body of his work).

So, while I'm deciding what to do and how to do it, I'll be researching for my upcoming thesis and reading books that are beginning to pile up. 

Waiting for new books

I've been waiting over the last couple of weeks for new books to arrive. I found the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th books in the Mortal Instruments series (Cassandra Clare) on sale at Daedalus Books for $3.95 each, which I thought was a steal. I later found Meredith Ann Pierce's book, The Dark Angel, on sale there as well ($2.98). I read this YA fantasy novel when I was around 12 or 13 years old, and I hadn't seen it since then.  I wouldn't call myself a fantasy/sci-fi reader in general, but I do enjoy it from time to time.

One of my penpals (from Yorkshire, England) recommended a bird watching memoir to me (The Running Sky by Tim Dee), which I received in the mail today. I love getting book recommendations, so feel free to comment your recommendations to me anytime.

I also ordered a Chickasaw language program, which I'm excited about. My mother's family has Chickasaw ancestry, and since the language is endangered, I thought it would be a great language to study. So, with that said, Ayala'chi!

Welcome, 2013.

Since it's the first day of the new year, I feel that a post is required. I'm still recovering from a bad cold, which I can't seem to shake, and while my husband and I had planned to see The Hobbit tonight,

we ended up shopping instead. I was having too many coughing fits to be in a theater for 2.5+ hours. 

I started reading A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz, a book I started during the summer, but didn't finish due to grad school reading. My professor for the 19th century British novel recommended it, so I bought it while I was in Sewanee and read the chapter on Persuasion (the novel we were reading for the course). I'll divide my time between this books and Collins' The Woman in White, which I technically started a few days after Christmas, but haven't finished yet.

Now that I'm reading about Austen, I have a feeling I'll be adding her books to my 2013 reading list as well, even though I've read most of them in previous years.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2013!

Austenprose: A Jane Austen Blog

Reading List for 2013

It's two hours away from 2013 here in Alabama, but I thought now would be a good time to go ahead and start laying down my reading list for the new year. My goal is to read at least 52 books in the new year. I've also decided that this will be the year I read all of Charles Dickens' works. I've already read Hard Times and Bleak House in 2012, so those I'll omit from my list for 2013. I've read some of the books on my list in previous years, but a large percentage are new reads for me.

My list so far...not in any particular reading order:

• The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller (Nonfiction read recommended by professor Jenn Lewin)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 
• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (recommended by author Susan Mccallum Smith)
• City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare (YA)
• The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry (recommended by author Susan Mccallum Smith)
• Me Funny by Drew Hayden Taylor (essays)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
• Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz (Nonfiction read recommended by professor Jenn Lewin)
• The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• Lady Susan by Jane Austen
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (YA)
• Jane Austen by Carol Shields (biography)
• The Running Sky by Tim Dee
• The Dark Angel by Meredith Ann Pierce
• The Chickasaws by Arrell M. Gibson
• Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman
• The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories edited by William Trevor
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
• The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
• What the Robin Knows by Jon Young
• Bird Sense: What It's Like to be a Bird by Tim Birkhead
• A Dangerous Mourning by Anne Perry
• Defend and Betray by Anne Perry
• Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• The Odyssey by Home
• The Iliad by Homer
• The Aeneid by Virgil
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (YA)

...more to come.

Revisiting childhood reads

I've been thinking about books that I enjoyed reading in my early teenage years. I've decided to go back and read those books again (as a mother in my thirties), and see if I enjoy them as much now as I did then. Also, I wanted to note any subtleties that I most likely missed back then.

Today, I reread Gary Paulsen's The Night the White Deer Died, a YA novel published in 1978. I read it in 1994 (as a thirteen-year-old). Here is a synopsis on the back of the Random House edition:

    An Indian brave stands poised to shoot a white deer drinking from a pool of water in the moonlight. It is only a dream--a recurring nightmare that haunts fifteen-year-old Janet Carson--but it is a dream that will change her life forever.
    
    Janet, one of the few Anglo teens in the New Mexico art colony where she lives with her mother, feels isolated and alone. For some reason, she is drawn to Billy Honcho, an old, alcoholic Indian who begs for money from her. As they get to know each other, the meaning of Janet's nightmare grows clear, and Billy becomes the brave in her dream.

When I read this novel as a kid, I don't remember being repelled by the fact that a fifteen-year-old girl ends up falling in love (with the idea of) a fifty-something year old man. It doesn't so much repel me now as it shocks me that it didn't repel me back then. I suppose the main idea of the novel is accepting that which seems unacceptable, but I can see how it could come across as borderline pedophilic...even though Billy, the older man in the novel, never physically touches Janet, it seems odd that Janet's mother allows her to be courted by a man of that age (and an alcoholic). I'm not sure how the modern publishing world would view this book, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't make it on the shelves in 2012.

I haven't read any of Paulsen's other YA books, but I plan to in the future. He has won the Newberry Honor Medal for three of his books, among other honors.

Next up on my list of YA books from my teenage years are two of Scott O'Dell's books: Sing Down the Moon and Island of the Blue Dolphins, Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, and I'm still working my way through Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.