On Authors, Fans, and Audience: Written in My Own Heart's Blood (MOBY - Outlander Book 8)

Last night, I polished off the remainder of another Outlander colossus--Written in My Own Heart's Blood.  Did you know that there are virtually no nouns that refer to 'a huge thing' without the connotation of a monster or a demon?  My first impulse was to call it a behemoth, but that wouldn't do at all, because I like 800+ page books if they are engaging.  (Now, the title, on the other hand, is somewhat of a behemoth!)

Disclaimer:  This is basically a review.  Yes, of course there are spoilers.

Those of you who know me know that when I undertake a review, it is generally not to praise the work.  If I find the work praiseworthy, I generally start by analyzing it, as I have with the Hunger Games series, and with a few volumes of the Outlander series as well.  Generally, for me, 'review' means 'critique.'

The Outlander series, written by Diana Gabaldon, is on Book 8 now.  I have written extensively on this blog about three of the books:  Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager.  I became stuck in Voyager because there is so much to say about the themes that interest me--I became bogged down, finished my reread without writing out everything I thought, and moved on.  When I started rereading The Fiery Cross with an eye to blogging it, I realized that I just wasn't that interested in that particular volume, which had a lot to do with Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna and her intended, Roger, with establishing "Fraser's Ridge," and with a minor peacekeeping skirmish that just wasn't terribly heroic.  Also with preventing pregnancy (a theme that was on the rise from the second book on) and the unlikely parentage of Brianna's son Jem (you will never convince me that it is more likely for a child to have been conceived when the couple practiced coitus interruptus than when she was raped by a pirate the next day).  In spite of The Fiery Cross, and a few moments when it was impossible to suspend disbelief, I was still enjoying the series, and waiting, perhaps not as anxiously as Diana's fans, for the next installment.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood became known through the author's conventions of abbreviation as MOBY on social media and on her web site.  And boy, have the past couple of years been exercises in social media promotion.  I am not certain how any author could sustain such a campaign and not emerge with utter contempt for her fan base.  For much of the last year and a half of her writing process, she (or her PR person) has been posting "Daily Lines"--sneak peeks of the forthcoming volume meant to titillate fans (sometimes literally).  Having just finished An Echo in the Bone, which I enjoyed, but which had a cliffhanger ending or two, I did eagerly consume these snippets.  Then, I tried to read them more carefully, avoiding the fan feedback, which was often in the form of "Oh, Diana, I LIVE for these books!" and "Oh, Jamie!  Oh, Claire!!" or "I just ADORE [character of choice]" or "When is the book going to be out?" or "WHY does the publication date keep moving?  I can't STAND this any more!!" or "Why are you DOING this to your fans who LOVE you?" and other ludicrous forms of praise and complaint.  Throw in the commentary on the casting of the Outlander Starz series, and it was truly nauseating.  I know, I know. Don't read the comments.  But the comments were part of this whole dog-and-pony show, since the whole Facebook page was designed to promote the book(s).  Eventually, I still consumed the snippets, but with less relish.  There were too many details revealed.  The snippets were repeated, or a slightly different paragraph break was posted, but essentially the same part of the story.  I began to fear that when I actually read the book, I would feel like I was reading all of the posts from Facebook, strung together.  This did happen to an extent.  And by the time the book came out, I was no longer eager to read it.  I waited at least a whole week before buying it (it may have been a month, actually), and probably would have waited longer had I not simply needed a book to read that would last through my husband's week-long conference in Switzerland.

That's the backstory.  But it's more than that.  It influenced how aware I was of the writer's writing process.  I did get the impression that the writing of this novel was a long, tedious haul--or at least, the combination of the Facebook campaign and the novel itself led me to that conclusion.

So before buying the book, I read a few Amazon reviews--something I rarely do.  I started with the negative reviews, because having seen fanbabble for the past 18 months, I rather knew what drivel would be in the positive reviews.  I wanted something honest.  What I learned is that some people--even self-described die-hard fans--were disappointed.  Even bored.  Here's a sampling:

I'm sad to say that MOBY was a major disappointment! I'm a huge fan of the series and have read every book, novella, etc available. Pre-purchased this book and counted the days until delivery. 

Plot lines were repetitious and somewhat boring (found myself skimming to get to point). Book lacked the flow that its predecessors possessed; in prior books I couldn't put the book down because the action was so intense. Stories seemed choppy and lacked relevance to each other, in some cases. 

Overall, for a book that took 5 years to write, it felt rushed, thrown together and lacked the authenticity that the 1st 7 books made look so simple. I didn't believe this journey...it felt forced.

***

 The book was so disjointed and did not flow with the poetry of the other 7. It made no sense that so many KEY, nay CRUCIAL components to this 24 years-to-compose series are not answered. Too many new characters were introduced, and I believe the author, Miss Galbadon, forgot to include many, many things alluded to in the story lines of the previous seven novels. Is this because she focused that information in her novellas?

***

A few things that irritated me.Jamie, raised in Scotland educated in France and now 20 years later.. In this book he talks more Gaidhlig than he ever has. Yet his sister who has never left Scotland, talk 99% great English. Felt like DG Learned some new words and had to include them. They didn't fit and it was SO over done. 

I didn't like Clair in this book, she took on the character of a know it all, always reminding us of how amazingly educated she is. We get it! So many useless filler stories that drag on and on, over detailed descriptions of surgery. Who cares when surgery are done on strangers, that have nothing to do with the continuing story. So many retold stories. Same Story different day.. War. war and.. the burning of a print shop again... At times I thought the story was about to pick up, only to find my hope die. The book is just a filler to the next book. I guess DG is dragging it out to make as much money as she can from this series. 

Ian had some great moments, His story could have been so much more with his fear of the baby's birth. Only to read Rachel water broke one page and 3 days later, Clair tells Jamie Ian has a son. Wow really, No excitement, no joy, no enjoying Ian's moment?The Greys have their own series and they should stay there. How stupid 70% of this book was the Greys searching for Ben. Who cares about Hal, who cares about Ben? I care nothing for William either. DG failed badly. If she spent half as much time building the characters as she did adding languages we didn't need and over detailed medical descriptions. 

***

I think that the build-up backfired with these readers.  But these reviews didn't put me off.  I forgot many of the criticisms--other than "boring," "surgery," and "characters."

I did not, however, find the novel boring.  Moving through, I could see what the reviewers meant--there were a lot of details of life, but I was prepared to forgive those.  More than prepared--I welcomed most of them.  One of the strengths of Gabaldon's writing is often that she does infuse purpose and significance into the ordinary... when she's not subverting the ordinary.  I did get bogged down in the character list sometimes, finding myself thinking--okay, who was that? and concluding that it didn't actually matter.

The first significant problem I noticed was the repetition of scenes from previous books.  Yes--at times, entire scenes.  Verbatim.  We relived, in brief, many events from each of the other seven books.  It felt like filler, and it felt a little insulting--like the reader could not be trusted to remember.  Now, this is an author who has direct contact with her readers via Facebook.  Many of those readers remember better than she does what happened in each of the books--or assume that they do.  In most cases, the flashback was strictly unnecessary, and rather felt like a device that should have been reserved for the mini series versions.  This was my first inkling that there was something odd in the relationship that the author had established with her audience--or fan base, since I don't think a "fan base" and an "audience" are precisely the same thing.

The third reviewer I quoted above mentions the Gaidhlig words and phrases in this book.  I will second that observation.  Though I did not remember that complaint from the review as I was reading, I developed it quite independently.  In his old age, Jamie is definitely slipping back into Gaidhlig.  Except that... I made up that "old age" part.  There is no rhyme or reason for why he--and Ian, who probably should be interspersing as  much Mohawk as Gaidhlig in his swearing and muttering--uses the Scotch Gaelic so much more in this particular book.  It becomes distracting.  But that's not all....

Speaking of vocabulary, I found myself using my Kindle dictionaries to look up obscure words and usages much more often than I have ever done before, and much more often than a casual reader with a Ph.D. in English should have to do.  I couldn't help feeling that this was another strategy--or dig--aimed at the fans she had come to know on Facebook.  First, the Gaidhlig was there for the fans, to allow them to revel in Jamie's Scottishness, and also to show off and allow them to pick up and puzzle over pronunciation and meaning.  Pure crowd-pleasing.  Meanwhile, the obscure vocabulary functioned to reinforce authorial superiority and control.  Except that the Gaidhlig did so, too.  As I read, I found myself getting the distinct impression that the author was reaching in and reminding me that she was smarter than me.  There were two things wrong with that--first, anyone can do research.  The vocabulary was a product of the nuts and bolts WORK behind the novel, just like the research into surgical techniques or military campaigns of the Revolutionary War.  Sure, a novel is work.  And in fact, more and more we're told that it's more work than inspiration.  Fine.  Whatever.  But the work should be behind-the-scenes.  The author can't imbue the work with the message, "See?  Look how much WORK I did!" Particularly when there has been a dialog on Facebook with that very implication--novels take a long time; they take a lot of work.  Gabaldon goes so far as to reprimand readers who think she is wrong about word usage in the back matter.  I was sort of incensed to read this after finishing the novel:

Owing to the interesting ideosyncracies of the Scots dialect, some words may appear to be misspelled--but they aren't.  For instance, while an English cook may have made her flapjacks on an iron griddle, her Scottish counterpart was frying sausages on a hot girdle.  (This occasional transposition of sounds results in such entertaining items as a Scottish dessert known as "creamed crud" ("curd" to the less imaginative English).  It also results in the occasional inattentive reviewer denouncing the occurance of "typos" in my books.  This is not to say that there aren'tany typos--there always are, no matter how many eyeballs have combed the pages--just that "girdle" isn't one of them.

Thank you, Mrs. Gabaldon.  However, this is a problem for readers, and by adding this note, you indicate that you know that this is a problem for readers, but don't care, because you're too smart to care, and ultimately you are the one in control. (Your editors know that, too, don't they?)  But frankly, this damages your ethos as well as your narrative.  Because the second problem with obscure words or confusing spellings is that they disrupt the reading process.  If I have to stop and puzzle while reading, to look up a word that is too obscure for an overeducated person to know readily, I have suddenly become more aware of my reading process than of the characters and plot.  This is a narrative intrusion that is much more disruptive--and possibly more condescending--than the famed "intrusive narrator," a subject of much contempt in certain camps, particularly among children's literature critics.  In my case, I did not think it was Gabaldon's typo, but I did think it was a Kindle transciption error. Consider the context:

I had a tiny cautery iron, its handle wrapped in twisted wool, heating on Amy's girdle.  I supposed it didn't matter if it tasted like sausages.

Given Gabaldon's sense of double entendre, and knowing now that it was not a transcription error, I can't help imagining her chuckling to herself about "girdles" tasting of "sausages" (*wink, wink* *nudge, nudge*)

I have not done as much research as Gabaldon on the linguistic characteristics of Scottish dialects, clearly.  But here's a thought.  In American English, a naturally occurring linguistic change is for "nuclear" to be pronounced "nucular" or "nuculer."  However, this is not something that appears in print.  If it were to appear in a narrative, even if the intent was to represent dialect, it would not register as such with readers, and would certainly not pass muster with editors.  Let's examine this from another angle.  The story.  Perhaps you noticed that the character who was narrating this particular chapter was Claire Fraser?  Right.  The time traveler. The ENGLISH time traveler.  From the 20th Century.  Why on earth would her internal narrative reflect 18th Century Scots pronunciation?  Exactly.  So that the author can demonstrate how smart she is.  *sigh*

I'm being perhaps more snarky and belligerant than I meant to be.  However, this is a natural response to the type of authorial antagonism present in the narrative, and in the note.  And that authorial antagonism is, I believe, a natural consequence of knowing your audience too intimately.

On a less personal note...

I do agree that the novel was extremely choppy.  It did not, in fact, read as a coherent novel with... okay, a plot.  There were sub-plots, but there was not an overarching plot.  I don't consider "Get Jamie and Claire back to Fraser's Ridge" to be a plot.  That, in fact, was the only unifying problem that needed to be overcome, and it was an author's dilemma rather than a plot dilemma--which points to my other major criticism.  After a while, I was tracing the author's writing process, which again took me out of the book.  It began to feel like a laborious process, and while I could appreciate the challenges of writing the book, that is not where I wanted to be.  Nevertheless, the stories themselves were interesting.  Unlike other critical reviewers, I enjoyed the presence of the Grey family throughout the novel.  For the first time, that family does actually seem to belong in the story of the Fraser's lives.  I was interested in Hal's search for his son Ben and his (purported) widow.  Unfortunately, that plot didn't resolve.  I was interested in William's... journey, which also didn't resolve, but came to one dead end (no pun intended--more on that in a bit...).  The wedding plots were fine, and provided the opportunity for some virgin (and not-so-virgin) sex and some sex ed, which again, is a crowd-pleaser.  These scenes did feel a bit forced, but they had to be there.  It's all part of the schtick.  I did not particularly enjoy the Roger-in-the-too-distant-past interlude, which seemed pointless but provided an intersection with her short story, "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" (which was not my favorite thing that Gabaldon has written).

I have not particularly enjoyed the "Bree and Roger in the 1980s" segments, and I almost think that all of their intrigues in MOBY were engineered to get them back to the past (HT: Roger Zemeckis).  While in the 1980s (and I would have to say that there was such an incredible imbalance between Roger and Bree time and the 18th C people that the overall impression was that Bree and Roger didn't fit into this book at all), there were, of course, pop culture references.  There was Fraggle Rock, which, as a fraggle fan, I appreciated, but which sort of registered along with Disneyland almost as product placement.  And then, there was the Tardis.  *sigh*  And I don't care how many Dr. Who fans are out there, I just think that to drop a Tardis reference into a time travel series is ridiculous--another somewhat pointless fan-pleaser borne of social media involvement.  I actually think of Tardismania as a very contemporary thing--I don't remember the Tardis being stressed in the 80s the way it is now, though certainly Dr. Who has many incarnations that (heh) span time.

In general, I enjoyed the surgery--though "enjoy" might be overstating it.  Some made me cringe--most decidedly.  Some were designed to make the reader cringe--in fact, I would guess that most of the surgical scenes were designed--yes, to show off the author's research, but also to make the reader squirm uncomfortably.  A different kind of squirming than the sex scenes, but I do believe that both types of scenes reach out of the book to produce a physical reaction in the reader.  And it works.  How a reader reacts to that type of forced engagement is another question--I was basically okay with it, though some things did stretch my suspension of disbelief.  For example... would incisions under the tongue really stop bleeding in 2 minutes' time with only pressure and cotton?  Having dealt with mouth injuries and extracted teeth, I doubt it.  Mouth injuries bleed profusely.  And would you really want to ply the 13 year-old with whiskey to perform the outpatient procedure, even if nothing else were available? Let's ask 'ol Hippocrates about that one. One surgery seemed placed in the novel for three purposes:  to disgust the reader, to stress the importance of birth control by depicting the (historical?) dangers of childbirth, and to introduce the ethics of forced sterilization.  I did rather feel that whereas in previous books the author's "out" when she encountered a block in writing was sex, in this book it was surgery.  I know people who could not have handled the description or their own visceral reactions to the descriptions, but though I read sympathetically/empathetically, I was able to read through them all. Not all contributed significantly to the novel overall, however.  I keep coming back to that, because being able to point to this or that as not really mattering demonstrates why the novel felt choppy and why it lacked cohesion--it could hardly have been more disjointed as a series of short stories or novellas, which seems to be the mode the author might have preferred for the separate sub-plots.

The other conspicuous authorial strategy was killing off inconvenient characters.  She does it twice.  It is terribly obvious.  And only one of the two is really forgivable, artistically speaking.   She introduced a character in the last book or two who was born a dwarf.  He has no place in 18th Century society outside of a circus, but is a delightful child.  Unable to provide for such a character, the author seems to have made a decision to kill him off.  It's a pity--he was an interesting character.  And the incident is really too random to feel satisfying, and too abrupt to be sad.  Gabaldon also introduces a prostitute and her sister as part of William's coming-to-terms-with-his-illegitimacy sub-plot.  As he struggles with what it means to have honor, shepherding a prostitute and her sister and shielding them from her professional hazards somehow begins to form part of his new identity.  Unfortunately, Jamie Fraser's son--even if illegitimate--and an Earl to boot--could not fall in love with a prostitute.  Which means that we can only find out that he probably was falling in love with her after she is dead.  *sigh*

Poor William. He has issues.  But how could he not, given his parentage?  I have to say that in this book, I cease to like the character of Jamie Fraser.  He is a barbarian at the beginning, and he is a barbarian at the end.  And poor, dear, overstimulated Claire needed to be a bit more defensive of Lord John Grey, who was, after all, trying to save her life by marrying her.  But when the red-heided battering ram (and I did not mean that as a double entendre, though it works) shows up again, all is forgotten.  Suffice it to say, other characters and certain sub-plots carried me through this one.

Did I like the book?  It hardly matters.  I was distracted enough by form and function that I don't know that I had the opportunity to like it.  When I wasn't thinking about how it was constructed and why, I liked it well enough, but don't get me started on the chapter titles (more crowd-pleasing, self-conscious cleverness).  There were certainly things I liked about it.  The book has not, by any means, put me off of the series (though Jamie's character came close--both at the beginning and at the end). I guess there are still too many plot holes--and that's it:  I want to know what happens next.  This one was not a cliffhanger, but in spite of its bulk, with many sub-plots and no overarching, unifying plot structure, it feels incomplete. Things that I still want to know:

• Is Ben Grey really dead?
• What is the story behind Amaranthus--Ben's purported widow?
• Will William ever love again? 
• Will Benedict Arnold turn his coat, and why?
• Where are Dottie and Denzell?
• What about that sticky business of someone knowing that Lord John is homosexual?
• Why did Ian try to kill Rachel in his sleep?
• How will the Revolutionary War end?
• Are these characters secretly immortal, and not in the literary sense?

You might notice that none of these relate directly to Claire, Jamie, & co.  Well, okay.  The last one does.  In fact, my curiousity about Jamie's ghost in Book 1 is beginning to wane.  The mystery is likely more intriguing than any answer could be.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood is a transitional point in the Outlander story--sustained only by the fact that it is part of a series.  I hope that the author works through her attraction to the short story/novella genres before plotting--or plodding through--the next full-fledged Outlander installment. But anyway, I will be waiting for the next installment.  In 5 or 10 years, I'll be ready.

Notes Toward an Article on Blogging and Reading

In a burst of creative/critical energy this morning, I decided to collect everything I have said about notable moments--on my original class blog, which is private, in a conference presentation I gave, in an article I wrote that was rejected, and on this blog--to prepare to shape them into one of the articles I've been avoiding.  I have a number of thoughts about the benefits of the notable moment post.  However, in the meantime I had a revelation about Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents...  I had latched onto Freud's idea that intellectual activity is beneficial because it helps us to stave off suffering, but I have decided that this is only the case when the intellectual activity itself is not the source of the suffering!

I get stuck on research.  When I research, I get lost in trying to be exhaustive, fighting the urge to completely disregard everything everyone else is saying because I'm saying something different anyway.  In the meantime, I become overwhelmed by the cacophany of voices who are not quite saying the same thing, and end up comvinced that I have nothing new to add to the conversation.  This is where I was at about 2 P.M. today, and I have not yet had the courage to look back at all of those open tabs of scholarly and non-scholarly sources discussing blogs and close reading.  The last time I researched blogs and education, I was ultimately rejected by an editor for not citing the right sources (which are pretty difficult to find, frankly).  Here is where not having anyone to ask "how's that article coming," and no real mentor from whom to seek advice really hurts me--because everyone who used to be a mentor has washed their hands of me, since I failed in finding an academic job that would lend intellectual community.  And because of that failing, I am doomed to continue to spiral into failure.  But enough of that.  Trying to lift myself out now!  

I wound up finding the outline I wrote last night, which goes something like this:

• What we think about reading on the internet

• What academics/teachers say about blogging

• Where close reading happens online

• How it can shape how we read

• How it can shape the way we teach

• How it can shape literary criticism

Perhaps if I stick to finding articles that can bolster each of these, I will not need to be terribly exhaustive in order to prove that I am saying something different.

In the meantime, at the end of the above outline was a second outline--this one a little more "conversational"--meant to be expanded into a book.  What I need to decide is who my audience would be, and why they would care...

Blogging the "Notable Moment"

It started with a class…

…and continued with a blog.

It happens on political blogs…

…and religious blogs…

…but is not typically a feature of book blogging…

…or online book reviews.

It can change the way we teach…

…and the way we interact with books.


It can change online literacy, or at least bring literary culture and reading online in a less shallow sort of way--don't you think?

Four Questions on Writing

I was thrilled to be tagged by Darwin and Mrs. Darwin to answer some questions about writing as part of the blog tour (you can read more about it here), because it makes me feel like a real blogger!  At the same time, I feel guilty because my bursts of writing are so far and few between.  One commenter remarks on this post about writing that she feels like "the writer who no longer writes"--and I go through intense bouts of that, as I explain here.  Nevertheless, I am on an upswing!  Thinking about writing and posting a thing or two.  So here goes!

1. What are you working on?

Blogs: I have, at this point, three blogs that I post to occasionally--this one, which is my "Booknotes" blog, my Teaching, Training, Blogging blog, on which I try to post insights into teaching that I gain from working as a (relictant) trainer, and my sewing blog, on which I try to document sewing projects and pattern reviews.  I started a blog to record last year's NaNoWriMo efforts, and I have the blog that started it all, Words, Words, which was an everything blog, before I decided that each of my split personalities needed her own internet space.  Mostly I post to this one--Booknotes from Literacy-chic.

Articles: In addition to blogging, I have, like Damocles' sword, two articles that I would like to write--one on where the Hunger Games novels fit in the history of dystopian discourses on literacy, and one that discusses the purpose and pedagogy behind what I call "notable moments" posts.  The former, on the Hunger Games, has (I believe) been more or less accepted as part of a proposed collection on dystopia.  The latter would be an extension of the paper idea that I proposed to a conference that I did not attend (I backed out), and I would have to write it by June 1.  I have only just decided to take it seriously.  

Fiction: Hanging by a slightly more substantial horsehair is the novel that I have been working on for two NaNoWriMos now... which is completely illegal by NaNo standards (writing the same novel twice).  I am very attached at this point to the scenario and the characters, but the two efforts, the latter chronicled here, are very different.  The scenario comes from a motif in Celtic songs--particularly "Broken Token," "So Early in the Spring," and various versions of "Step it Out Mary"--in which the young man and woman are in love, and he leaves her behind for a time to seek his fortune.  As the song progresses, there are a few different scenarios.  In "Broken Token," he returns and tests her loyalty.  In "So Early in the Spring," he returns, but cannot find her, then learns from her father that she is married.  In other songs that tell a similar story, we learn why she may have married in the previous scenario:  the father has arranged a match for her, and in "Step it Out Mary," unable to sway her father with her protests, she "drowned with her soldier boy." (Why the soldier drowned with her instead of taking her away, I'm not sure...)  It was "Broken Token" that gave me the idea, though the song is particularly moving to me--what if, after he went away, the entire world changed?  What if a catastrophic event happened in their village--if they were conquored and enslaved--and she had to adapt, or die?  When he returned, would they still love each other?  Would it truly work, when each had changed according to their own separate experiences? I guess I felt like it was a little unfair for her to be expected to wait... as well as unrealistic.  My novel will one day treat that scenario.  I started first from their reunion--and she is pregnant.  Oh, and a sniper.  My second attempt started from just before their parting, as a glimpse into what will be lost.  Perhaps in November we will see what the third try will yield?  But lately I've been thinking of revisiting my second try on the blog.

2. What makes your work different from others' work in the same genre?

Blogging: As far as I know, most bloggers do not compartmentalize the way I have done, but every now and then I come across one who has different pages for different interests.  I like the separate spaces, but having separate spaces makes it seem like I'm writing less over all, and it's a lot harder to write for an audience, which I'm not sure I'm doing anyway.  I would like an audience, and I have friends who visit, but I guess the main difference between my blogging and other blogs is that I'm not consciously joining a community by writing about certain things in certain ways or contributing to a larger conversation.  It's not because I don't want to; I guess that's not really where I am right now--or I haven't figured out who wants to hear what I have to say.

Book Blogging: My book blogging is different from other book blogs because I don't like to give overviews and reviews.  I have reviewed a few books along the way, but mostly to get what I have to say out of my head, not to recommend the book to other, like-minded readers, or to support a favorite author.  When I write them, my reviews are fairly critical, and they are usually the advice I would give to writers who have good ideas and a lot of promise, whom I (in the arrogance of my academic training) think could be doing better than they are.  One reason for keeping up with the Booknotes blog is to keep my analytical skills sharp and to collect ideas for scholarship, if I ever motivate myself to return to scholarship.  But if I'm being truthful, I would ideally like to share my readings with people who might not have seen what I see.  I'm pointing out the things in the books that I would have pointed out to students in the classroom.  I'm starting the discussion that I would start with a nonexistant book group.

My method is to blog what I call "notable moments."  I asked students to do this throughout my teaching apprenticeship (because truly, it was never a "career")--to write a short analysis of a moment in a novel that interested them, and explain what it was that they found so fascinating.  These can be more or less personal, but ideally would get the students to pay attention while reading, to make note of what they responded to, and to look a little bit closer at a scene or paragraph before trying to understand the work as a whole.  The last time I taught an upper-level (college) literature class, I had students keep blogs that would document their reading process. The "notable moment" became more developed in that class, and really enriched our class conversations.  Now I blog notable moments myself!  It's not something I see too many people doing on blogs, and it really works better on the second or third read of a book.

Fiction: What makes my fiction attempts different is that I seem to want to write Young Adultish fiction scenarios, with a little bit of sex or grittiness that pushes it out of what I think is okay for YA (but is still present in YA), with more mature relationships and 20-something characters.  So I seem to write a novel that is not quite adult fiction, but is not quite YA, though it resembles YA a bit more than any adult genres.

3. Why do you write what you do?

As I say on my blog profile, "I am a compulsive writer in search of a subject."  I have written as long as I can remember, though I have never written a journal or diary because I felt foolish writing to myself, or because I didn't quite know how to write a genre that was, by definition, private.  I wrote silly things and wound up destroying them from embarrassment.  The same fate befell most of my poetry from high school--though the undergraduate poetry stuck around.

I blog notable moments because they're how I read--they get stuck in my head and I just need to say something about them.  I also think they're a good mode for blogs, and a great research and pedagogical tool.  But mostly, it's how I read.  And I fear to lose the ideas I have when I'm reading, because they will most likely not become articles or research papers now.  So I blog them.

I blog on my Teaching, Training, Blogging blog in order to reflect on my current job and think about how I can apply those ideas to teaching if I ever get back there.

I blog on my sewing blog because sewing blogs are cool, and I want to be one of those people who sew things and write about them.

As for fiction... When I was in high school, I wrote some fiction, but mostly drama and poetry.  Only the poetry really came naturally to me, and I produced a fair amount of poetry as an undergraduate, some of it good.  Being happily married with children whom I like doesn't lend itself as well to poetry as I might like, but I guess I'm okay with the tradeoff!  I read more fiction than poetry now, as I did when I was younger, but I've never felt like I was particularly good at writing it.  I have a hard time with plot, in particular.  I'm writing this novel because I participated in NaNoWriMo 2011 with Mrs. Darwin, and I loved it.  I loved the creative energy, and the sense of actually having produced something original--a story.  I think I did a marginally better job than some published writers, and I would love to do something with that story (titled "The Merman's Daughter") some day.  I would also like to continue writing the story that I started in 2012 and started again in 2013--the one about the estranged lovers.  There's something I need to say about love and friendship and sex and commitment and memory and pain.  At least, I think that's it.

4. How does your writing process work?

I have never managed a writing discipline.  Even when I was writing my dissertation, and I was told to write SOMETHING every day, I couldn't.  Or didn't.  I'm thinking of Wordsworth's "spontaneous overflow... recollected in tranquility."  My writing process looks something like that, even if it's not terribly emotional.  Rather, I write the thoughts that don't want to stay contained in my head.  The things that I turn over and over and seem to be too large for thought alone.  When I've thought it out to a certain point, I fear losing nuances, and so I write.

Although I am a night person by nature, and I still write on the weekend, one of the impediments to my writing is work--specifically, working a 40 hour week.  When I get up early to be at work, say 6:30, I can't stay up late and write.  If I get up after 9, I can write late.  During the week, even if I feel creative, I don't have the energy after 10 P.M.  But since I am awake earlier, I actually find that my creative energy occurs earlier in the day.  So I want to write in the morning.  Preferably before I get any real work done.  However, I am at work, and I really shouldn't.  It's quite a problem.

When I read on my Kindle, I usually make note of a passage I would like to write about and then go to the computer when I'm ready and use the desktop Kindle software to copy and paste the passage(s) into separate blog posts, often titling them according to the idea I have about the passage and maybe typing a few notes to remind myself what I'd like to say.  Sometimes, they end up as full blog posts.  Sometimes not.  I have about 20 posts queued up related to the Outlander series that I never actually completed, and one or two about the Hunger Games trilogy--not entirely satisfactory, but not completely lost, either.  When I'm reading a paper book, I do something similar, though I don't always type the whole passage before I start.  Sometimes I do, though.  I like titles, and I do usually think in titles as a starting point!

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Melanie from Wine Dark Sea, how do you write?  I would also love to know about my favorite craft blogger's writing process--LiEr from IkatBag.