On Wanting Someone to Love The Same Books You Do

“The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.”  Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923)

My mother sent me this quote that she found a few weeks ago, and added the comment that she loves when her kids read the same books as her and then we can discuss. My brother, my mom and I have read a lot of books around the same time, usually popular YA series (we read Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking kind of at the same time, as well as The Hunger Games and my brother I fought over who got to read Mockingjay when it came out).
 
I definitely agree. There is just something incredibly enjoyable about being able to talk about a book with someone, especially with someone who has similar ideas and opinions as you. People like to like things together. That's basically what the website tumblr is; people liking things with other people.

 
So, naturally I would find it kind of disappointing if I really REALLY loved a book that no one else I knew was really into at all. I want someone to love books with me (most of the time).
 
I was thinking this a few days ago, and then I started imagining that there was someone with the exact same reading tastes as me and we loved the same books. Then I could always have someone else to love a book with me.
 
But then I realized that would be really, really boring. Part of the fun of reading or recommending books is finding that person who will fall in love with that book just as you did. No two people have the exact same reading tastes, I think. The world is a colourful place, and I love it.
 
What would you do if you met your reading taste clone?

Trying Not to Empty the Well of My Writing

A few months ago I mentioned that I was working on a super in detail crazy outline. Well, the update is that I've finished that outline (25,000 words!) and I've now started working on complete draft number three.

My outline is crazy detailed, and really I've given myself EVERYTHING that I need to pretty much just write this draft until I'm done (if I could go without sleep for about a week...). Yet I'm STILL "getting stuck."

Where do I get stuck? Well, before I begin. There are so many times when I cannot bring myself to start writing because my thoughts are along the lines of but I don't know where it's going... I don't know what should happen...

If you saw my outline, you would realize that those are really lame excuses. I know what is going to happen!! I just have to write it!!

A few days ago I figured out my problem. I'm one of those people that likes to get things done, so naturally I like writing to the end of the scene because I feel like I've accomplished something. If I leave a scene half written, I feel like that's one thing I can't cross off my to do list.

However, starting with a new scene every time is hard! Awhile ago I read some writing advice that said you should stop when you're on a roll - even in the middle of a sentence. Heck, ESPECIALLY in the middle of a sentence.

I'm writing this post right after I wrote a bit, and I probably only had a few sentences left before I would've completed the scene I was writing. Instead of finishing it, I stopped mid-thought. I know exactly what I want to happen next, I just have to write it. So I don't have to start completely fresh next time, I just have to pick up the thread where I left off.

When do you stop writing? Mid-thought? The end of a scene/chapter?

“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Truth in Fiction

I just finished The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which yes, is a good book. I think the thing that strikes me most about John Green's writing (other than the fact that he writes beautifully) is how achingly real what he writes feels.

OK, now is the part where I try and tell you what I'm talking about.

There are lots of books about death, and I've read a lot of books about death. After a while, they start to seem the same. The characters always go through the same motions, act the same way, deal with the same issues, and after a while I get sick of it, and it seems fake.

I don't know, maybe these people draw from their own experiences, but when I read these kinds of books it doesn't seem like they do. I think a lot of writers end up falling into the same old stereotypes and ways of presenting things because that's what they know, and that's what they've read all the time. I know I've done it. When I was in middle school, I started a bunch of stories centred around popularity and yup, there were those typical Mean Girls and Best Friend Group of Three that pop  up in YA ALL THE TIME. I wrote that stuff because that's what I read and that's what I knew.

But it wasn't real. Popularity in real life, at least I find (or at least in my school), is absolutely NOTHING like it is in books.

I think in order to avoid falling back into the regular stereotypical fluff, we have to draw from our own experiences, but in a way that you put all or almost all of yourself into what you write.

Sometimes when I do things like go to a funeral, or  spend time with my family, or even go bike riding, or anything in real life I'll be taking notes in my head of what I'm experiencing and what I feel like at that moment. I try to remember every detail. And I don't dramatize or anything, I just bring to focus what I'm thinking at those moments, what I'm experiencing. (These kinds of thoughts are also usually present in journals and diary entries). One thing I always find is that I'm noticing and experiencing things a lot different than characters in books usually do.

But what I'm experiencing is real, and the books are not. I know fiction books are just that: fiction. But that's not an excuse to not write things that aren't real and clear and truth.

Here I shall insert a John Green quote that I've used before:

Lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring facts.

Fiction is an attempt to reveal the truth.  If us as writers are trying to reveal the truth, then why are we so quick to fall back into the old stereotypes and clichés and why are we as readers so willing to accept them?



I know pouring yourself into your writing is hard, REALLY hard. Walter Wellesley Smith got it right when he said, "There's nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."  Opening veins is painful and difficult but also, I think, necessary in a way in order to reveal the truth.

So, yeah, that's what I mean when I say that John Green's writing is "achingly real", and if you want to learn to write like that or you just want to read a good book, go read The Fault in Our Stars. Please.