Category: books

Sudoku Puzzles & Writing

I love doing sudoku puzzles, completing at least two a day. Naturally, I like more challenging ones, because solving them is more satisfying.

After years of doing them on specific websites and in the newspaper, I’ve recently discovered a new site for doing them. Their logic seems different than what I’ve previously encountered, which makes them more difficult, which translates to more challenging and fun.

It also reinforced the need to not take shortcuts or jump ahead. I’ve found the best way to solve these is to maintain discipline and process the different logical devises employed in a step-by-step process.

I’ve also learned that sometimes the complexity will overwhelm me, and I become frustrated. When that happens, I stop the clock, save the work, close the page, and walk away. Returning to it in a short while with fresh eyes and mind then lets me see obvious clues that were missed earlier.

This reinforces my writing processes and approach. I’m often a sucker for clickbait about how-to articles regarding writing and publishing. I’m not necessarily seeking easier, but that elusive realm known as better. I often find that they’re packaging the same writing advice I’ve seen everywhere else, but with new words and more interesting headlines. There’s very little that offers sage advice about writing better.

That makes sense.

Guidelines are well-established for proper structures or how to describe characters and settings, write action scenes and pacing. But each of our works, hopefully, are unique and fresh to us as writers. Nothing is as clearly delineated as it is in hindsight of published works. We’re making multiple decisions about pacing and info-dumps, trying to decide how much of what we know becomes too much for the reader, or spoils the story.

In the end, I learned again lessons found in solving sudoku puzzles. Stay true to the my course. Don’t take shortcuts, remain patient, and use anxiety to feed determination to finish.

And, if it’s necessary, take a damn break and return to it with fresh eyes and mind.

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The Bookstores

We’d read about another book store to check out in Eugene. “Better than Smith Family Bookstore,” they claimed.

Photo: Smith Family Bookstore, Eugene, Oregon

What? Better than Smith?

We love Smith. A re-purposed fire station, it reeks with books. Attempts to organize the books are ongoing. Well, they are organized, but they spill out everywhere.

We checked out J. Michaels Books, on Broadway. It’s a good book store, and well worth an hour of browsing, but it would not supplant Smith for us.

We drove on to Barnes and Nobles on our book quest – the last resort in our efforts to find several books. I know I’m a writer. I’m supposed to make money from selling books. But my wife likes finding used books, reading them, and then selling them to another book store for credit.

I’m ambivalent about that. She and I enjoy reading. We’re spreading the wealth by keeping used books in circulation. And, we’re sparing the environment (some) by keeping the need to publish more books down. But, we know we could do more to reduce books’ impacts on the environment by going digital, but…sigh…we’re in love with the feel, smell and practice of reading physical books. It goes beyond logic.

All that book store visiting prompted thinking about which book store is my favorite. First, what makes a good book store? Books, of course – selection, prices, condition. But there’s often more. A spirit of reading and writing is embedded in the best book stores.

Powell’s Books in Portland remain marginally in first place on my list. One, talking with the folks working there, you can tell that they enjoy books. Two, it’s so damn big and impressively organized. Used and new books co-exist for sale. Both are reasonably priced.

Second place is more difficult. I like, on equal levels, Bloomsbury Books and Bookwagon New and Used Books in Ashland, but I also like Smith Family Bookstore in Eugene. I guess I mark the three establishments as tied for second. All have knowledgeable, book-friendly personnel working there. Bookwagon is the smallest, but we enjoy the owner, Karl.

In third place, then, is another Ashland book store, the Book Exchange. Dark and crowded with tall shelves of books, the Book Exchange feels like an old book store, and offers excellent prices and selections.

In ranking my book stores, I dismissed things like coffee shops, pastries, parking and locations. They’re just nice accouterments to a proper book store, but it’s really about the books.

What about you, readers and writers? Are there any book stores that draw your love and loyalty?

 

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Sporadic Update

An organized compilation of random subjects plaguing me that I may have posted about, but which I think I should update readers about.

  • The Trial. A plea bargain was accepted so I don’t need to testify about the break-in. The saddest aspect (besides tangible evidence that strange, sick people are out there) is that our beloved neighbor, Barb, has moved out. She’s just too frightened in her house any longer. That’s troubling. Barb and Walt were two of the best things about our location. Walt’s passed away and Barb has moved away, moving me to sigh about change and life.
  • The close call. I survived one close call in April, when I endured one of the worst haircuts I’ve ever received. This young ‘stylist’ was clearly a novice and took to my head with the same sense of style that military barbers employed when I entered basic training. Fortunately, my hair has grown out into something that looks reasonable again.
  • Tucker. Tucker suffers from conjunctive gingivitis. We submitted him to some oral surgery in April. It went terrific. Several teeth were removed, including one of his big lower front fangs, if you will, but he’s not having any swelling, bad breath, pain or drooling, so hooray! On the coin’s flip side, he’s feeling so much better that he’s very energetic and wants to assert his position as the alpha beast.
  • Other cats. Peace has been brokered between Meep (a.k.a. Popi) and Boo Radley. Boo’s PTSD also seems to be diminishing. The big bedroom bagheera without a tail has become more trusting of us. Quinn, of course, remains Quinn, a sweet, charming cat who prefers to avoid conflict.
  • Neighbor cats. Pepper, Princess and Buddy continue their visits and begging. Pepper remains the worse. That’s a little surprising. We always believed Wade’s corgi, Bella, annoyed Pepper, driving her toward us. Sadly, Bella passed away from cancer last month. She’ll be missed but with her absence, we thought that Pepper’s daily visits would taper off. They still could, with time. It could be that what was once refuge is now habit, though. Buddy is a sweet little black character. He’s clearly well-fed, but enjoys being petted and presented kibble, which, being a sucker for cats, I do.
  • The cats’ activities interfere with yard work. Here they come when I make an appearance, pop, pop, pop, Pepper, Buddy and Princess, pop, pop, pop, Boo, Meep and Quinn. (I keep Tucker away for the safety of the rest.) Boo likes to settle right beside me, instructing me about what I’m doing wrong as I weed and mulch while the rest visit each other and observe me. All flee to safe distances when the edger and mower come out.
  • Fitbit. I took some Fitbit hits with the travel last month. Daily mileage on average dropped to five and a quarter miles per day while the average of steps per day dipped to about twelve thousand for the year to date. But summer is here, so I have hope I can raise those averages.
  • Reading. Just read four books in April: ‘Ordinary Grace’ (which I loved), ‘I Am Pilgrim’ (a quick, fast read that had some flaws but remained compelling), ‘The Passenger’ (although interesting, a disappointment), and ‘The Devil’s Star’ (a Jo Nesbo Harry Hole novel). Just started ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ at my other’s insistence.
  • Writing. Really hope to finish ‘Long Summer’ soon and get it out there. Its complications absorb a lot of limited brain power keeping it all straight and then trying to present it in a manner that won’t cause insanity among readers. Still *ahem* haven’t leaped back into publishing like I wanted/planned/expected but I remain determined to do so. ‘Peerless’, ‘Everything in Black and White’, the Spider City’ trilogy, and ‘Fix Everything’ all need to undergo the editing and publishing process. Meanwhile, I’m really eager to write the third book in the Lessons with Savanna mystery series.

There are other things to write about, of course, particularly on the family fronts, but I shield them and their activities, so I post very little about that. Politics, technology and economics remain passions that deserve posts but I end up diverting too much energy to write much about them. Dreams are experienced every night, so I could write about those, too, like last night, when I didn’t like how the dream was going, and changed it in the middle, astonishing everyone in the dream. We’re also undergoing the annual raccoon invasion, and dealing with yard work. My wife’s health continues to be a concern while I remain stupidly healthy. Trips and adventures are planned, and we’re hopeful we can pull some of them off this year and not get sucked back into the black hole of family issues.

Overall, I’m excited, optimistic and hopeful, a great way to live. The writer is pestering me to get on to it with Brett, Philea, Handley and the rest, so it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Writing Bucket

I’ve been receiving a number of queries about when the next novel is coming out. So – updates.

  1. Alas, I’m not working on the next mystery in the Lessons with Savanna series. That would be the third novel in the set, ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’. Continuing the story begun in ‘Life Lessons with Savanna’ and extended in ‘Road Lessons with Savanna’, Studs is being framed for murder in Texas. I promise to update the Facebook page this week. Thanks for being fans.
  2. I’m looking forward to working on ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’. Between recovering memories, coping with creeping insanity and being framed for murder, so much is going on with Studs. It’s the sort of developing character and story that excites writers. A third of the novel was completed before the great computer breakdown of 2016 forced me to send the Envy back to HP for repairs, living without my machine for three weeks.
  3. Work continues on ‘Long Summer’. I’ve been  writing the first draft for eight months. I’m not certain when it will be done. I’m hopeful it’ll be soon but, I’m a writer. As a writer, I’m always hopeful, optimistic, pessimistic, doubtful, depressed and exuberant. It’s a fun soup to dwell in.
  4. ‘Long Summer’  is very challenging to think through and write. While involving time shifting via a modified Alcubierre Drive (which involves, as well, exotic new materials and a whole other set of theories), it’s about the concept of now. Keeping that in mind as the parallel story lines twine together via the major characters and their alt existences causes me to pause and probe, asking myself, “Wait, which of the alts is this?” It’s imperative that each alt’s story is kept true and coherent. As I’m not a very coherent writer, you can imagine the babble in my head.
  5. All of that time shifting involves just the Humans, the ones known as Earth Humans, with the ones known only as Humans (from Aition) far less directly involved. Besides them, though, are the other intelligent life forms and their customs and civilizations. The story centers around a few of the Sabard and Travail, but the Monad’s plots and intentions drive much of the surface tension and action – or so it appears….
  6. ‘Long Summer’ has become so big as a Word manuscript that Word turned off several functions, like spell check and auto-correct. To counter that, I broke the novel up into its parts as manuscripts. It reduces my ability to move back and forth through scenes, parts and chapters, and demands that more documents be opened simultaneously, but I’ve recovered those Word functions. Overall, I consider that a win.
  7. I want to finish ‘Long Summer’ not only so that I can move on with writing ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’, but because I need ‘Everything In Black And White’  copy-edited and published, along with ‘Spider City’, ‘Fix Everything’, and ‘Peerless’.  Besides them, new ideas have filled the writing bucket. There’s still that coffee shop musical percolating in my mind. I still want to do more with the Stellar Queen and the Magellan.
  8. Besides all this writing, my personal reading keeps falling behind. A friend dropped me an email yesterday. He finished reading the third novel in the Ferrante’s Neapolitan series and raved about it. Having read the first two, I want to read the third. Dozens of books besides it reside on my bookcases, night stand and other places, waiting for my attention.
  9. Meanwhile, I’m moving forward with paperback publication of the four published novels, so those of you bugging and encouraging me to do this, you win. I will do it. Soon. Really. I promise. I’m not crossing my fingers, either.
  10. But, I decided as well to have the covers for the Lessons with Savanna series redone. Time, energy and focus is necessary for that to happen, so bear with me.

Okay, with that out of the way, time to write like crazy, at least one more time. Back to the Wrinkle, Brett and Philea.

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A Morning Walk

We headed into town, not too early, to have coffee and take a walk. We meandered the streets and alleys, climbing stairs, examining new businesses and wondering about old ones.

The creek was visited to gage how high and fast that water ran, and low spots were inspected to see what protections are up against flooding. Talk turned to books – talk always turns to books – and we drifted into the book stores. The first one was visited because she likes the energy she gets from book stores. Book stores always help her forget recent history and the ugly hairpin turns of the latest politics.

In that first book store was a Tana French novel. I examined it to see if we’d read it and decreed we had not read ‘The Secret Place’, and nor was it her latest. We’re getting behind on our reading!

Next followed an examination of Lisa Lutz’s newest book. This was not another of the Spellman files. We’d enjoyed the Spellman series. They were light, entertaining reads. We’d read good things about her latest, ‘The Passenger’, but we passed with promises to buy it another day, or perhaps wait until it could be acquired used.

On we went to the other book store, where the air is thick with the enriching scent of fresh books. Along the way, we talked about ‘The Likeness’, and how much our late neighbor, Walt, didn’t like that book, thinking the underlying concept was too far-fetched and not believable in his mind. We sought a used book of ‘The Secret Place’ – we like recycling books and stretching our dollars – but only ‘The Likeness’ was available.

Off we went on our meandering way, like cats sniffing the paths left by other animals. She told me of the book she was reading about Robert Louis Stevenson. She’d not realized, or maybe had forgotten, that he’d written ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. She remarked, “He was all about his writing, from the way his life is told, a lot like you. He was all, ‘Grrr, don’t disturb my writing,’ just like you get.”

I let it pass with a smile. He’s not like me, and I’m not like him. We’re just writers.

Those poor non-writers rarely understand.

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Never Stale

Hit the book stores as part of our springly, puddly Thursday urban hike. We were in search of my wife’s book club’s March selection (Language Arts). The rich smell of fresh books gobsmacked me after entering the Book Exchange. Pausing, I inhaled, savoring the odor. “I love the smell of new books,” I told the cashier.

A smile lit her face. “Me, too. It’s one of my favorite smells.”

I agreed. “But…what is best? New books? Roasting or brewing coffee? Baking smells? Popcorn.”

She thought a moment. “Books, I think.”

“Why?”

“The smell of books never go stale.”

Ah, sweet.

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