NOTE: I normally have a link to my Goodreads review, but the site is down as I post this. I'll remove this note once it's back up and the links can be put in.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ll be honest, I read this book for two reasons: because it’s short, and I was curious what a more nuts and bolts approach to novel writing would look like (I got it with a big book bundle that I was looking through after finishing my last read). I have read many books about writing novels, so by this point it takes something with a little extra to make my socks really roll up and down.
Structuring Your Novel doesn’t really have that, but it is a perfectly cromulent introduction to novel structure for a new author. The book is divided broadly into three parts:
Breaking down the classic three act structure
Breaking down scene structure, specifically the scene/sequel duo
A final section, curiously, on sentence structure
Initially I found the book overly restrictive in how it demands a novel must be written, but for new writers, this is probably a good thing–learn the rules before setting a blowtorch to them. Weiland even notes that some well-known authors don’t use the three-act structure–but actually do! They just do it without realizing it, because it’s the natural way people tell stories: a beginning, a middle, an end. This seems entirely logical.
The scene/sequel thing is also very fundamental: stuff happens, then the characters react, or more broadly, ACTION and then THOUGHT. Logical!
Really, everything in the first two-thirds of the book is fine, if not revelatory for anyone who has been writing for a while. But I question the necessity of the section at the end on how to write sentences. None of the advice is bad or wrong, but it feels out of place in a book about structuring your novel, as if Weiland cribbed from a book on grammar to make this book a little heftier. It’s easily skipped, and I’d suggest any writer who struggles with grammar might want to read an entire book on the subject before trying to crank out a novel. Rewiring is hard enough without having to correct a bunch of grammatical errors as well.
Overall, this is a perfectly fine book for new writers.
I thought I had reviewed Talent is Overrated years ago, when I first read it, but apparently not.
I took this as an opportunity to re-read it, so here is my review, about a decade or so late.
The book, originally based on a Fortune magazine article, presents a simple premise: That people who seem gifted with natural talent aren’t gifted at all–they just practice more and at a level most people would find untenable, allowing them to excel. The first half of the book explains how deliberate practice can make a profound difference in how adept someone is at a given skill, whether it’s playing a musical instrument, throwing a football, or something else. Author Geoff Colvin does note that physical limits can impose obvious constraints on some tasks, but that generally, if someone practices extensively (hours a day), does so in a deliberate manner (always pushing themselves to learn more, rather than getting super proficient at a certain level), they can rise to be at the top of their chosen field or endeavour.
The second half of the book then goes into the why of deliberate practice, and here it’s less about case studies and more speculation on what compels people to go well beyond what most would do in terms of time and energy investment in their chosen hobby or line of work. Colvin also holds out hope for those wanting to try out deliberate practice by saying it can yield benefits even in those older, although it’s obviously better to start younger.
Overall, I like the premise of the book. It’s logical and there’s plenty of evidence to show that smart, hard work is the not-really-secret recipe to success. It’s just such hard work that only a few will ever fully commit to it, and it’s still not entirely clear why some do. Colvin’s prose is not particularly vivid or arresting, but it gets the job done. The book, written in 2008 (I had a “2018 anniversary edition”, though I could not notice any changes from the original text I read) could probably do with an update, as smartphones and other technology were nascent when it was written, and it would be interesting to see how current tech can help or hinder deliberate practice. Still, this is a worthy and very accessible read.
Whitley Strieber returns with another book about the entities he calls the visitors, and while Them is perhaps a bit unfocused and doesn’t tread much new ground, it does allow Strieber to test out some new theories on what the whole visitor experience may mean. The tone is also generally a bit gloomier than it’s been in the past, with less emphasis on the transformative parts of the experience and more placed on the darker aspects–abductions, violent confrontations with civilians and the military, and whether the intentions of the visitors are benign or more sinister.
On the latter, he at least assures the reader that they’re not probably not harvesting us for food, since reports of abductions have dropped off sharply in recent years and if we were a food source, they’d still be ordering take-out, so to speak.
Apart from one late chapter, this book does not cover his own experiences, except mentioning them where relevant to others he discusses.
The first half of the book consists of letters pulled from the 200,000+ Communion letters archive, with each followed up by an analysis. Each case is chosen to help illustrate a particular aspect of the visitor experience, and the overall impression one gets–if the assumption that everyone having these experiences is not simply experiencing these things in their minds–is that the visitors are not a monolithic entity with a single purpose, but rather an assortment of factions, some with more noble goals (help us evolve), others less so (using us as playthings).
A point Strieber drives at repeatedly, is that the visitors themselves are responsible for all the secrecy concerning their presence, and governments and their agencies have been compelled to play into this, creating a system of classification that has perhaps forever insured the full truth of what is happening will never be known. The tremendous amount of money the Pentagon spends that goes unaccounted for is no flight of fancy, and Strieber suggest it may be funding vast projects the public is utterly unaware of.
One of the more interesting aspects of the visitor experience that Strieber has talked about before is how it might relate to death, but while he brings it up multiple times here, he makes no further attempt to better explain or theorize on the connection, steering the reader toward other books of his, such as The Afterlife Revolution. Understandable, perhaps, but still disappointing.
The second part of the book mainly covers how the government and military have helped to cover up what is happening, then ends with a chilling chapter on how Strieber himself has been targeted recently for harassment, via hacking of his website, as well as intrusions into his home that compelled him to journey overseas to finish the book. It ends, as he notes so much of the visitor experience has, without any clear answers.
If you’ve read his other books on this topic, you won’t find a lot that is truly new here, but he still explores the subject in a way I find measured and compelling, never making bold claims about things he does not know, but neither standing back as a supposedly detached observer. As I’ve said before, if this is all an act, it is convincing enough to be indistinguishable from reality.
My biggest complaint is that the book never really pulls together in an overall narrative, it reads as more an overview on several broad aspects of the visitors, UAPs and government secrecy. But it covers these things well, and the book is an easy recommendation for anyone interested in the topic of the visitors or UAPs/UFOs.
(And yes, the title is a direct reference to the 1956 science fiction film about giant ants, Them.)
Press Reset follows people working at some of the biggest publishers and developers in the video game business, and in doing so author Jason Schreier paints a rather depressing portrait of a dysfunctional industry that works on a boom and bust model, with layoffs and studio closures regularly forcing workers to seek out new employment, often requiring them to move to different cities, states or even other countries.
Amid the stories of mismanagement (and a few are epic, especially the tale of 38 Studios) some bright moments occur when small groups of devs band together, go indie and find success on their own terms, even as they grapple with some of the same long term stability issues, albeit on a smaller scale.
In the end there are a few suggestions on how to make the work environment better for the artists, programmers and others who make video games, notably through unionization (which has started to happen since Press Reset was published) and the idea of studios only having small core “creative” teams and hiring contractors for pretty much everything else, like level construction, art generation and so on. This is also happening to a certain degree.
For some people featured in the book, the ultimate solution for them was to simply get out of the video game business altogether, moving into jobs that pay better, provide more stability and generate less stress. Press Reset is an excellent, detailed look at an industry that should really be better for workers than it is, considering video games have been around for decades, and generating billions in revenue for many years.
This short book is about pitches. The story kind, not the baseball kind. I got it as part of a book bundle and I love short books, so I dove in.
And it’s fine. Hawker provides plenty of her own pitches as examples and while it may seem ego-driven at a glance, it’s nice in that there is an authenticity to the pitches. She’s not “writing to the crowd”, she’s providing examples of work she has relied on directly to help sell her novels.
The writing style is light and the book can be finished in an afternoon, all the better to apply the lessons therein. I don’t foresee myself making use of it much with my own writing, but for those who may need to work on and use pitches, this is a concise and worthy resource.
This is short. It’s less of a book and more of a booklet–which is not a criticism, but more a heads-up to anyone looking for a comprehensive take on art journaling.
MacLeod has found a process that works for her, outlines it in simple detail, and importantly includes numerous photos of her art journals to show exactly what she is going in terms of how she organizes pages and the material that becomes her novels. There is a level of enthusiasm and amiable goofiness here that makes art journaling appealing, particularly for people who may have tried and failed with software solutions like Scrivener. I think some people are just more visual or hands-on, and that physical connectedness is what helps spark their imagination and gets the actual writing flowing.
I feel like I was like this when I was younger, but now I’m not so sure. I am tempted to try, and MacLeod’s slim book is a fine example of one approach to take. I can give this a recommendation, assuming you can get it on the cheap. It really must be emphasized how short it is! Most people could probably fly through it in 15 minutes. Still, what’s here is decently presented and could help some who are stuck with their current plotting methods.
In the bio for You Are Awesome it’s mentioned that Neil Pasricha gives 50 speeches a year–nearly one a week. I saw one of these speeches, back in December 2019 (what a simpler time that was) and he is a fantastic, engaging speaker. He could probably give 150 speeches a year (post-pandemic, of course) if he could clone himself. You get some of that same zest and enthusiasm in his books, but while You Are Awesome doesn’t get the blood pumping like his oration, it does a pretty good job of outlining his philosophy on taking on life and, in particular, accepting and moving past adversity.
He breaks things down into nine “secrets”, or steps to follow and the book is a quick, breezy read, full of anecdotes that Pasricha always makes interesting, his tone so dang friendly and relatable.
The advice ranges from simple and sensible (“Be resilient. Keep going.”) to what has worked well for him (“Be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.”) to somewhat less conventional things. When he talks of shifting the spotlight, for example, he refers to the belief many have that everyone is watching them, when for the most part everyone else is too absorbed in themselves to be paying much attention to every little thing you do. Accepting this means letting go of your ego. Pasricha is basically saying get over yourself.
My favorite piece of advice is to carve out time strictly for yourself–no interruptions tolerated! This may be more difficult for some, depending on their work or home life, but I really like the idea of shutting out this noisy world of social media and the relentless drive to catch and keep our attention (“Engagement!”) so I’m fully on board with this.
Overall, I think someone–especially someone young, though it’s never too late, as they say–following the advice in this book may not necessarily end up awesome, but they will probably be a happier, more content, and more successful person.
Joanna Penn’s short book is exactly what it says–a look at how to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to live the life of a writer, through new writer tribulations, on to actual publication and then dealing with what comes after (should you be so fortunate).
As such, there is little in here about how to write, but plenty of advice on how to deal with everything from self-doubt to overzealous fans, using a Problem/Antidote format. Penn’s style (seriously, a writer named Penn? The closest I get is someone calling me “pencil neck”) is open and friendly, and she provides excerpts from her private journal to illustrate points she is making, which is a nice way of building trust with the reader. The advice is practical and pretty common sense–you’re unlikely to slap your forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” but it’s still handy to have all of these ideas collected together and presented in a way that’s easy and entertaining to absorb.
It’s also just a nice change-up to read a book about writing that is not about, well, the actual writing part.
Recommended for new writers or those on the cusp of publishing.
I am continuing on my unofficial second career as not a writer, but one who reads every book about writing instead. Then writes about them.
Welcome to the Writer’s Life succeeds on a couple of fronts. First, author Paulette Perhach has an entertaining voice and regularly drops funny little zingers in with her advice without ever making it feel like she’s trying really hard to make you laugh.
Second, the book tackles a few things that a lot of new writer books don’t cover or cover minimally. There are plenty of books that will cover the classic plot structures, character development and other things you need to know in order to tell a convincing story–whether it be through fiction or non-fiction. Perhach covers the other stuff in a writer’s life, relating her and the experiences of other writers in finding ways to nurture and grow your writing habits, covering everything from what to read (and how important reading is) to meditation to clear your mental decks (she claims to never suffer writer’s block because of her daily 15-minute meditation sessions), as well as touching on the business side of writing, along with thoughts on pursuing an MFA (spoiler: she doesn’t think it’s necessary).
It took me awhile to read through the book and though I enjoyed it, I found myself wondering why, and I believe it’s two things: I found the quotes from other writers largely unnecessary (fewer would have been fine) and there are sections where even Perhach’s writing style can’t lift the subject matter from feeling just a little dull. But I have read a lot of books on writing, so it’s just as likely that I am becoming a bit weary of the topic of writing itself.
Still, I think this is a good intro to the craft of writing for a new writer and have no problem recommending it alongside other more “nuts and bolts” book on the writing process itself.
There are a couple of important things to remember when reading Bird by Bird. The first is that it was published in 1994, so it predates the internet. This means that the writing advice is not informed at all by the last 27 years of technological and social change. It makes a difference.
The second is that, while Anne Lamott is enthusiastic and funny, this is not anywhere close to a formal how-to on writing. Lamott covers some broad topics–writing every day, not worrying about the quality of first drafts, how publishing shouldn’t necessarily be looked on as an end goal–but does not get into any kind of nitty-gritty. The advice is more inspirational than nuts and bolts.
A lot of it is amusingly written. Lamott seemed a tad neurotic at the time but also rather self-deprecating, so a lot of the book consists of colorful recollections on how she dealt with various writing-related crises, and sometimes her advice translates to simply “don’t do the thing I did.”
I was glad to finally read Bird by Bird, but the passage of time, changing markets and new technologies have made some advice less relevant in 2021. Some fault may also undoubtedly lie with me–if this was one of the first books on writing I’d read, I probably would have found it hilarious rather than amusing, and found the tips more compelling. Still, it’s a quick read and a lot of the information it contains remains relevant today.
UPDATE, September 24, 2021: I have fixed a few egregious typos and such in this review. I always seem to commit the worst writing mistakes when reviewing books on writing.
I also think my take on the book is a bit glib–this is a well-loved classic and I think I was in an especially cynical place when I read it, and that colored my view of it. If you are just starting on your potential career in fiction writing, this is one of the books I highly recommend reading. There is a joyfulness in it (along with pain) that you don’t find in many books on writing.
Steven Levy’s book chronicling the development of the Macintosh is not just a historical record of the development of that seminal personal computer, it’s a historical record in itself. Originally published in 1994, with an afterword for the revised edition added in 2000, it captures Apple at three distinct periods in its history, all of them coming before the development of the iPhone and Apple’s eventual rise as the world’s most successful consumer electronics company:
The early 1980s when the company went through its first growth spurt, buoyed by the success of the Apple II. This is where the bulk of the book takes place, as it covers the genesis of the Macintosh through to its debut in 1984.
The early 1990s. The Mac is established and successful, albeit not the world-changing device many of its developers had hoped for. Apple itself is in a precarious position, embroiled in boardroom drama, a bloated product line and the existential threat of the growing PC market.
The late 1990s. In which the story comes full circle, in a way, with Steve Jobs returning to Apple and unveiling the iMac, the first major release that would help guide Apple back to profitability and long term success.
The first third of the book lays out the history leading up to the development of the Macintosh, centering largely on Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). One of the scientists working there was Alan Kay, whose hypothetical “Dynabook” would embody many of the design elements we take for granted in modern personal computers. The scientists at PARC would go on to create machines that used mice and windows, but the company was never able or particularly interested in turning their research into commercial products, frustrating many of them who wanted to push forward the boundaries of computers.
From here, Levy–who actually visited with these scientists during this time in the early 1970s–moves on to the newly-minted Apple Computer, which was expanding to dozens of employees on the success of the Apple II. The Apple II was a capable but primitive machine and most acknowledged it would not be the future of Apple. A serendipitous trip to PARC by a team from Apple to take a look at what the scientists there were working on would lay the groundwork for what ultimately became the Macintosh.
It’s here that Levy moves onto a two-pronged approach, covering the development of the technology, along with the personality clashes along the way, many of which were due to Jobs’ combination of perfectionism and antagonistic management style.
Apple actually developed the Lisa first, a Mac-like computer doomed to fail mainly due to its exorbitant price (some things never change). Another team worked on a more accessible computer and while Jef Raskin led the Macintosh project initially, Jobs imposed himself and eventually took over.
Levy does a good job in letting the principal characters tell the story through their own words, fleshing out detail when needed, without imposing his authorial voice (though he is an unabashed Mac fan). Oddly, Levy’s tone stands out most when he is simply talking, often in a condescending way, about the technology itself. He is clearly interested more in what the technology can do and not the nerd factor.
The fun here is in seeing how the Macintosh team struggled and (mostly) overcame so many obstacles as they put together the original 128K Mac. Levy does a very good job in dispelling the notion that Apple simply copied what they saw at PARC. The Apple engineers actually expanded the PARC research in significant ways and put all the technology into a device that could be used by anyone. The Macintosh was not the first computer with windows, a mouse and a graphical interface, but it was the first available to the masses and the first to do many things we take for granted now.
It’s especially illuminating now, some 36 years after the debut of the Macintosh, to see how it all came together and how the original device really shaped the personal computer industry–and still does, as witnessed by the introduction of Apple’s in-house M1 chips that will power all Macs going forward.
One minor complaint about the book–it is filled with numerous grammatical glitches, possibly due to a bad scan (it effectively predates the e-book era). There’s also some sloppy, if amusing typos, such as a note on how “Hypercard was included for free with every Macintosh starting in 1977” (impressive as the Macintosh did not debut until 1984).
Overall, this is an informative and at times fascinating look back at the birth and clumsy adolescence of the personal computer, and how one, the Macintosh, dared to push forward, thanks to an incredibly dedicated and talented team of designers and engineers. Recommended–and not just for nerds!
First, I want to express my relief that the trend of every other novel in the last five years having “girl” in the title has not merged with the newer trend of every non-fiction book having “f*ck” in the title.
Mark Manson is a guy with a potty mouth who found himself, started a blog and now has a few books like this one detailing his philosophy for living a better life. At its simplest level, it boils down to (with cursing) letting go of all the things that hold you back, because a) we’re all going to die and b) better to trey something and maybe find what you really want than to not try and muddle along, vaguely unhappy.
It’s not a bad philosophy.
He frames happiness–or rather, the misguided pursuit of what we think will make us happy–as a central problem in our lives. Don’t try to be like a celebrity, don’t just aim to make a lot of money doing whatever, think about what you enjoy, then pursue it as best you can. He uses his own misguided youth as an example of what not to do, and how the sobering, unexpected death of a friend woke him up and put him on a new path. Don’t worry, his advice does not rely on the sobering, unexpected death of a friend to work. Or at least I assume not. A lot of what Manson talks about is not particularly new–he advises against holding “shitty” values, and “rock star problems” (basically not appreciating what you have by unrealistically comparing yourself to levels of success that may be rare or unattainable to most). What makes The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck unique is Manson’s voice. As I said, he has a potty mouth, and there are passages in this book that made me chuckle or even laugh aloud. It helps the presentation a lot–if you’re into a somewhat blue version of getting what is essentially timeless advice on living.
F*cking recommended if you’re not averse to a little salty language mixed in with sensible advice.
