“The
purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
~
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
As I searched for a particular author’s guest post in
my blog list recently, I ended up reading a few of my own posts. I laughed at
myself for my continual angst about not posting frequently enough. What I see
now is that although I enjoy blogging and journaling, neither are a priority
for me.
It is what it simply is, as with all things in life.
If I’d posted daily or weekly or even kept up the monthly schedule that I had
licked for a while, it wouldn’t have changed much in my writing life. Or would
it? *puzzled laughter*
We always try to second guess the puzzles of our lives
and behaviorally speaking, there’s even a “grass is greener on the other side”
consciousness we apply to our own behavior. While there’s always room for
improvement when we have the reason and motivation to improve any aspect of our
lives, some things we choose to do are just a random choice that we assign
importance to and probably won’t matter in a hundred years, as they say.
That said, I’ve also whined for a few years now about
how I need to upgrade my website. When I finally get around to it, I’ll likely
include a blog with the site and close this one. I’m all for keeping life as
simple as possible. I’ll likely leave Jellyfish Day up and post a notice and a
link to the new site when it happens. It will be a timely exit as Google is
slowly removing features from Blogger and I don’t see any major improvements
coming.
I’ve also felt rather neutral about my craft lately.
I’ve invested 25 years into what has turned out to be more of a dedicated hobby
that almost pays for itself rather than an actual writing career. Monetizing
the hobby hasn’t been hugely fruitful, and yet at the same time, it’s satisfying
to have generated some nickels doing something I enjoy. Notice I just said
enjoy and not love!
The blood, sweat, and tears aspect of creative writing is
all too real. . . Plus, my editorial work has been both a satisfying interest
and a thorn in my side. It definitely contributed to the frustration of not
doing as much creative work or blogging as I had planned. The most satisfying
aspect of providing editorial services is assisting other authors to find
their wings... But I’ve cut down on those engagements too and am trying to ease
into finishing up projects started and stalled: a memoir, a group of nature
essays that’s basically a themed memoir of my Arizona wildlife encounters, a
possible novel sequel, and some dabbling with dreams to create poetry and flash
stories.
Lately I’ve felt much more interested in and emotionally
sustained by photography than by wordwhacking. The photo interest is definitely
a hobby, not a career choice. I’ve learned oh so well that monetizing an
interest quite often drains the fun from it. So I’m not worrying about proper
and fancy equipment or entering my work into galleries or selling it online. In
fact, I’ve been shooting most of my photos via cell phone for the past few years.
I post a few times a week at Instagram.
In today’s world, we’re under huge pressure to become
influencers on social media, to churn out blog posts, podcasts, and videos and
gain thousands of followers. While this might be great fun for some people,
probably extroverts, I feel overwhelmed by this trend. Always have, even though
I do love browsing the internet and spend oodles of hours consuming media of
various sorts.
Anyway, that’s where my head is at lately . . .
In spite of all these uncomfortable thoughts,
I’m still celebrating having written my 100th book review at US Review of
Books, which also happens to roughly coincide with my two-year anniversary as a
book reviewer! The months have flown by – and why shouldn’t they? I’ve always
said that if someone would pay me to read and research that my life would be
perfect. The extra reading didn’t actually make my life perfect at all since time
spent reading isn’t compensated, but it does truly tickle me to share an
opinion about a book and get paid for that.
One thing I never, ever tire of is a good story,
whether in oral form, in film or on stage, or in a written format. I’ll never
stop pursuing story . . . well, unless I poke my eyes out with a sharp stick,
but I have no plans of doing that any time soon.
To share my celebratory mood, here are some links to fifteen
of my favorite review books, culled from the 100 I’ve written over the past two
years. I’m a pretty eclectic reader and review a fairly wide range of genres,
so the links reflect this. Some of these books are small press books you may
have heard about (or will hear about, as some are TBP soon. The odds are good
that you won’t have crossed paths with the self-pubbed titles, but these
deserve a close read too!
The Last Crusader Kingdom: Dawn of a Dynasty in
Twelfth-Century Cyprus
(Wheatmark, 2017)
Helena P. Schrader
Helena P. Schrader, historian and author of the
critically acclaimed Jerusalem Trilogy, brings her deep understanding of
complex eras and considerable writing talent to bear in this fictional
treatment of the Ibelin and Lusignan families in the late twelfth century.
Fishing for Birds (Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 2019)
Linda Quennec
Quennec masters juxtaposition and paradox in this
unassuming but powerful debut novel. The viewpoints of three Vancouverites—young
widow Kate, her mother Nora, and Kate’s elderly friend Ivy—alternately diverge
and converge as they explore the contexts of their lives and loves in a New
Age-y island community near the Canadian Northwest coast.
Begotten Not Made (Irishtown Press, 2018)
Cónal Creedon
Caught between indulgence and renunciation, young
Brother Scully exchanges thoughts with Sister Claire for only an awkward hour
in December 1970, but their love inspires a daily ritual of flashing lamps at
dawn between monastery and convent.
All Roads Lead to Lawrence (Green Buffalo
Press, 2019)
Craig Leener
Engaging readers in a fast break followed by an easy
layup and a slam dunk, Author Craig Leener returns to Zeke Archer’s world where
athletic prowess plus metaphysical curiosity equip this youthful character to
meet life’s challenges and obstacles.
A Perfect Confluence (Black Rose Writing,
2019)
Peter Bridgford
Crime caper meets riverine adventure in this whimsical
yet riveting tale. Noah is a likeable jerk, an ex-addict on the mend who
foolishly messes around with the local mob boss’s daughter. He’s not interested
in Papa Guerro’s offer when Lizzie announces she’s pregnant after the one-night
stand: marriage or certain death.
The Communing Tree (iUniverse, 2018)
Theresa Verboort
When Judith’s father returns from Vietnam in 1967 with
a debilitating case of PTSD, he finds refuge in a small church of like-minded
souls. Led by a charismatic pastor who advocates preparing for the “end times,”
many in his flock abandon their livelihoods. By the time Judith is sixteen in
1979, her family has spent eight happy years hidden deep in the Kalmiopsis
Wilderness in southwestern Oregon.
A Whisper Across Time: My Family’s Story of the
Holocaust Told Through Art & Poetry
(Jubaji Press, 2018)
Olga Campbell
As artist Olga Campbell neared retirement, she began to
feverishly honor her mother’s haunting loss of many family members during the
Holocaust and to grapple with the epigenetic roots of her own inherited,
intergenerational despair through the medium of her prose, poetry, painting, digital
photo collage, and sculpture.
What Survives (IP Books, 2017)
Phyllis M Skoy
This quiet but powerful literary novel is the story of
what remains when everything we cherish is ripped asunder. Adalet, a young
Turkish woman, is negotiating familial and cultural expectations as an educated
Muslim wife and newly expectant mother when the Avanos earthquake of November
1999 strikes. In a fateful moment she loses both her parents, her unborn child,
her physical welfare, and ultimately, her husband, as he soon wanders off with
a more glamourous lover.
A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest (Eyewear
Publishing, 2019)
C.P. Mangel
A black lawyer turned successful novelist and his fair
Jewish wife make a life-changing move from Chicago to North Carolina. The
couple is reluctant to take their striking, confident young daughter, Asa, away
from educational opportunities and leave their comfortable lives in 1950s
Chicago, but Ty has inherited ninety acres of land, the remnant of a former
land grant passed through his family for over a century. Thus begins an
obligation that grows far graver than anticipated.
The Phantom of Witch’s Tree (Untreed Reads
Publishing, 2018)
Mark Lunde
Manifest Destiny has long come and gone in Montana’s
Rocky Mountain wilderness, but the final glimmer of the Wild West still flickers
in October 1912 despite railroads, motorcars, electric lights, and other modern
conveniences. Deputy Matt Hargreaves, spoiled scion of an illustrious Civil War
hero, meets his tarnished destiny while he serves a warrant at a remote
farmhouse near the Canadian border.
How Long Is Exile? Book I: The Song and Dance
Festival of Free Latvians (Xlibris 2015)
Astrid Barbins-Stahnke
Latvian immigrant Milda Bērziņa-Arājs, her sister, mother, aunts,
cousins, and her daughter are the heroines of this historical family drama
focused upon themes of displacement and identity.
No Birds Sing Here (BQB Publishing, 2021)
Daniel V. Meier, Jr.
Mix a dram of Hunter Thompson, a dash of Kerouac, a
pinch of Tom Wolfe, a sprinkle of Palahniuk, a dab of Salinger, and a heaping spoonful
of Scott Fitzgerald. Shake liberally and what emerges is an urban literary concoction
that rises to the level of the best road trip stories ever told.
The Long Way Home: Stories (Bottom Dog
Press, 2020)
Ron Lands
Lands, a semi-retired hematologist, brings small-town
Tennessee to life in this debut collection of fifteen linked short stories. The
author’s strong sense of local landscape and his finely tuned instincts as
physician and writer are apparent in the detailed yet tightly rendered prose, a
somewhat Carveresque marriage of vision and economy.
Tronick (Suncoast Publishing, 2021)
Rosie Record
Ghost in the Shell meets the Millennium series in this
quintessentially American cyberpunk thriller. . . The high-concept tale will
play out vividly in readers’ minds, begging for a screenplay adaptation because
Tron’s world is easily imaginable, a dystopian near-future that America in
particular may be headed toward. If so, we can only hope that we’ll have
imperfect but savvy women like Mira Killian, Lisbeth Salander, and Fiona
Tronick fighting on our side.
A Mother’s Tale and Other Stories (C&R
Press, 2021)
Khanh Ha
The eleven linked short stories of this collection
revisit the complexities of the controversial Vietnam War. At once poignant and
jarring, the tales are narrated from multiple personal viewpoints: the physically
and emotionally maimed soldiers of North and South Vietnam, Vietnamese civilians
whose lives are no less desperate than the young men who face certain death, American
soldiers and prisoners of war whose fragile lives hang by a thread, and the families
of all sides who return to the misty jungles and rice paddies to search for the
remains of loved ones missing in action.
May the Fourth be With You, by the way!
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| Celebration! Photo by @katerwriter, 2018 |
