The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Wow. That is all.
At the Oscars the other night, Robert De Niro presented one of the screenwriting awards, and in his presentation speech, he said this:
“The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day.”
Isn’t that the truth, especially those last two! Most of the time I’m pretty confident in my abilities as a writer, but I have moments when I sit around in withering conviction that I’m not fooling anybody, that I totally suck, that I will never ever ever be any good at all.
But then I usually snap out of it. As John Cleese said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, after revealing that he had been turned into a newt, “I got better!”
Anyway, I got the first round of edits done on Princesses II: Back in Blue (not the actual title) in early February, and since then, I’ve started hearing back from the beta readers, who are providing good and useful feedback. As for Princesses I: The Book That Started It All (not the actual title), I’m still waiting on that one until the summer months, at which point it’s time to start whipping that book into shape for publication late in the year. Plus, at that point I’ll probably start letting out drips and drabs of information about the story…including…the actual title!
And then there’s Lighthouse Boy, on which I managed to get myself stuck on a particular plot point for quite a while. I did the backtrack-and-attack-again thing three or four times, but I think I’ve finally managed to crack through that particular problem. All it took was a complete reimagining of the main character and what he wants to accomplish in life! Writing: it allows us to avoid rethinking our own life choices by rethinking those of fictional people!
I think I may be forgetting something…oh yeah, I have a complete manuscript of GhostCop (not the actual title) sitting here someplace. I should probably figure out what to do with that, too….
SamuraiFrog did a quiz about books. So I will too. Because I’m all about…umm…hmmm, what the heck am I all about, anyway….
1. Your favorite book:
This is always the question, innit? The Lord of the Rings (JRRT), The Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Gavriel Kay), Cosmos (Sagan), and…I’ll just stop there, or we’ll never get to the next question.
2. Your least favorite book: Back when I actually used to insist on finishing books that I thought sucked, I found some real stinkers. Nowadays, if a book isn’t doing it for me, I just stop reading it partway in. Life’s just too short. But, as noted, I did waste a chunk of my life on some crappy books. Representative titles? The Celestine Prophecy (I knew that my “New Age” phase was definitively over when I read this and couldn’t stop rolling my eyes), The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand was a morally stunted, facile non-thinker who couldn’t even take her own advice), and Twilight (and yes, I wanted to like this one, since I thought that a good teen romance combined with a good vampire story would kick lots of ass, so imagine my consternation when I realized that the book is neither one of those things).
3. A book that completely surprised you (bad or good):
I remain stunned at how bad the last two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire were. And there was a graphic novel that I checked out of the library pretty much because the title sounded intriguing, called Alice in Sunderland (by Bryan Talbot), which absolutely floored me with how good it is.
Oh, and A Tale of Two Cities. When I read this, my plan was to read it one chapter a week, so as to simulate the original reading experience the novel’s readers had (because it was serialized in magazines of the day). This lasted until Chapter Five or so, when I just had to keep reading, the book was so good.
4. A book that reminds you of home:
Maybe the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander or the Gothic YA novels of John Bellairs? Both entered my life via my mother’s standard punishment method of handing me a book when I’d screwed up with the admonition that I was not allowed to watch any teevee at all until I finished it.
5. A non-fiction book that you actually enjoyed:
Um, what’s with the wording of this question? It sounds like, “Holy crap, nonfiction doesn’t have to suck!” I wonder if this was originally one of those Tumblr quizzes that often read like they were written for fifteen-year-olds. Nothing wrong with that, but this question makes me think this quiz is aimed at high-school kids who likely haven’t read any nonfiction other than their textbooks.
Anyway, I read tons on nonfiction, so I could go on all day, here. Anything by Carl Sagan or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Barbara Tuchman, for history. Bill Bryson.
6. A book that makes you cry: Lots of them have at various times.
There are a number of moments in Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry that reduce me to tears every time I re-read the trilogy.
7. A book that’s hard to read:
I increasingly view my life as a death-struggle between myself and The Brothers Karamazov What is it with me and that damned book?!
8. An unpopular book you believe should be a bestseller:
Mine, dammit! (Although it’s stretching the definition of “unpopular”, since it doesn’t really exist yet. Hmmmm.)
9. A book you’ve read more than once:
Here’s another question that makes me thing this quiz was aimed at younger readers, because the wording seems vaguely surprised at the idea of re-reading. I re-read a lot of books.
10. The first novel you remember reading:
Gosh, that’s going back quite a ways. Maybe The Mouse and the Motorcycle? I honestly don’t recall what the first proper “novel” I read might have been.
11. The book that made you fall in love with reading:
Ye Gods, I don’t know. I honestly have zero idea. Maybe one of the Curious George books. I always loved the Alphabet one.
12. A book so emotionally draining you couldn’t complete it or had to set it aside for a bit:
I don’t know that I’ve ever found a book that emotionally draining.
13. Favorite childhood book:
I mention some of them above, don’t I? I can’t name just one. So many of the books I read as a kid make up the person I am now.
14. Book that should be on a high school or college required reading list:
Gosh, I don’t know. I think the lists are probably pretty good already. Although I’ve always been really resentful that my own high school reading life didn’t include a word of Mark Twain, but I had to read Ordinary People. What the hell was that?!
15. Favorite book dealing with foreign culture:
Great travel writing is a favorite genre of mine, such as the books of Paul Theroux. Bill Bryson wrote an amazing book about Australia.
16. Favorite book turned movie:
The Lord of the Rings.
17. Book turned movie and completely desecrated:
I never go into movies adapted from books to be faithful adaptations of the book; as long as the movie gets the basic moral thrust of the novel’s story right, that’s pretty good. I could name some of the James Bond movies, many of which bear no similarity to their books other than the titles, but I really do approach movies and books as different things.
18. A book you can’t find on shelves anymore that you love:
Hmmmm. I generally know how to find what I want to read. No idea.
19. A book that changed your mind about a particular subject (non-fiction):
Macbeth changed my mind about Shakespeare being boring.
20. A book you would recommend to an ignorant/racist/close-minded person:
I wouldn’t bother. If a person whose views I find repugnant actually asked me for reading material that reflects my views, by definition, they aren’t closed-minded.
21. A guilty pleasure book:
I don’t feel guilty about pleasure. I own a book, it’s because I either like it or I haven’t read it yet. Neither of these things embarrasses me.
22. Favorite series:
Harry Potter. Or the John Bellairs Johnny Dixon-and-Professor Childermass series. Or James Bond! Or….
23. Favorite romance novel:
Hmmmmm…I don’t read romance as a genre, but I do like romance to figure in novels I read, for whatever reason. Pure love story? Richard Bach’s The Bridge Across Forever.
24. A book you later found out the author lied about:
Like that guy who went on Oprah and then made tons of money and later admitted making it all up? Never read anything like that, to my knowledge. I remember being somewhat disappointed to learn that relatively little of John D. Fitzgerald’s Great Brain books were really based on his youth…and then being disappointed again to learn that his Papa Married a Mormon was, likewise, not based all that closely on his family’s early years.
25. Favorite autobiographical/biographical book:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.
26. A book you wish would be written:
Princesses In SPACE!!! III, which I haven’t written yet.
27. A book you would write if you had all the resources:
I have all the resources. I’m working on it.
28. A book you wish you never read:
I’d like to say that even by reading her I learned something about myself or became better able to discuss my own thought processes or some such rot, but ultimately, reading Ayn Rand was a giant frakking waste of time.
29. An author that you completely avoid/hate/won’t read:
Orson Scott Card, a moral midget whose books can live on all the shelves but mine.
30. An author that you will read whatever they put out:
Guy Gavriel Kay, Christopher Moore, Bill Bryson, and quite a few more!
Time for some more answers to questions!
Have you read anything that you didn’t expect to like, but did? Any genres that you expected to not like, but did like at least some of them?
Oddly, I don’t think I ever have! I never read anything not expecting to like it. Which obviously doesn’t mean that I will like everything I read, but I always expect to like it.
Now, I do tend to lean toward some genres and away from others, but even that can change. It’s been a number of years since I found an epic fantasy that I really liked, and of late I’ve been kicking around dipping my toes into the mystery genre somewhat. We’ll see.
(By the way, any mystery recommendations? I’d like more contemporary, urban stuff. Or crime writing.)
Do you sing at all? In church? In the shower?
I tend to be moderately embarrassed to sing, and I’m not sure why…I like to think I have a decent voice and can carry a tune, but I have no idea, really. I do like to sing when I’m alone, and when I’m driving myself, I can belt showtunes with the best of ’em. I also tend to have a song somewhere under my breath as I go through my day at work. I’ve never sung publicly, for some reason. Probably some weird blend of cowardice and introversion!
Linkage…or something….
:: Other than that, I have no idea what I’m doing.
More next week. Theoretically.
I’m not sure I was aware that New Orleans even had an NBA team, or that it was called the Pelicans, until I read about its new mascot a few minutes ago. Behold the creepiest damn thing in the entire world of sports, anywhere, on the ENTIRE PLANET.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be sitting in my bathtub, with arms wrapped around my drawn-in knees, rocking back and forth as I weep.
(via)
Oddities and Awesome abound!
I only have one link this week, and it’s a pretty amazing read about “The audacious rescue plan that might have saved the space shuttle Columbia. Could NASA have rescued the Columbia astronauts? Technically…perhaps. Practically…almost certainly not. For the details, read the article.
I know, I said I’d be starting Berlioz this week, but I’m just not ready with that post yet, so here’s a peek into a musical life that showed great promise before it was cut short at the age of nineteen. Spanish composer Juan Crisostomo Arriaga was born fifty years to the day after Mozart was, and like Mozart, Arriaga was a child prodigy who might have become Spain’s greatest composer had he not contracted a lung ailment during his studies in Paris and died just ten days before he would have turned twenty. Alas, for this symphony is a clear sign of a confident and talented voice that was cut short far, far too early.
Here is Arriaga’s Symphony in D.
The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
