Anyhoozle, of my 52 books, I wanted a quarter to be indie published, and a quarter to be non-fiction, because 1. supporting other authors, and 2. I’m a knowledge whore.

I’ve been surprised and delighted by looking back at my reading list, some of the stats have shocked me.

So, the stats, out of my 52 books (because I know what the final couple are):

• 26 (50%) were non-fiction
• 26 (50%) were fiction
• 27 (53%) were from self-published authors (of which a couple were author friends with publishing deals)
• 25 (48%) were traditionally published books
• 20 of the 26 fiction books were Young Adult (no surprises there!) Although the biggest shocker for me this year was that only 9 were fantasy, 11 were contemporary YA. I had a feeling I’d been leaning towards contemporary, but I was surprised to realise I’d read MORE contemporary than fantasy.

I’ve had a couple of characters that would fit a contemporary story flitting around my head, so I might start listening – obviously I’ve been bending towards it for a reason.

You can see the rest of the books I’ve read here.

So to my top 10 books of this year, and my top 10 books (plus predictions for next year).

BEST OF 2017

Fiction Books of 2017 (in no particular order)

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Oath Breaker by Shelley Wilson

Orbiting Jupiter by G. D. Schmidt

A Semi Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland

The Watch and Wand by Allie Potts

Keepers by me (because obviously I’m going to include my own books! :p)

Non-Fiction Books of 2017

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Nobody Wants To Read Your Shit Anyway by Stephen Pressfield

13 Steps To Evil – How To Craft A Superbad Villain by me (because obvs)

And What of 2018? Predictions and Books to Watch Out For

Okay so I’ve got a couple of predictions for 2018

1. There’s been a TON of superhero books published by the big YA authors – Leigh Bardugo, Marie Lu, Marissa Meyer to name but a few. With Infinity Wars coming next year, I’ve no doubt that were going to see an explosion of superhero books.
2. In addition, I think there might be more pirate novels too
3. Alongside that, more graphic novels
4. Last, I think audio books will continue to rise in popularity
5. Oh, and one more, I think that there will be an increase in co-authored books

10 (that turned into 14) Young Adult Books To Watch Out for in 2018

The sequel to Keepers, by ME!

The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily. X. R. Pan

The Exact Opposite of Okay – Laura Steven

Cruel Prince – Holly Black

Time Bomb –Joelle Charbonneau

Everless – Sara Holland

Zenith – Sasha Alsber & Lindsay Cummings

Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi

Onyx and Ivory Mindee Arnett

Glitter – Aprillynne Pike

War Storm – Victoria Aveyard

A Court of Frost and Starlight – Sarah J. Maas

Obsidio – Aimee Kaufmann and Jay Kristoff

Legendary – Stephanie Garber

That’s it folks, my year in books, my predictions for 2018 and a few books to Keep an eye out for.

If you haven’t bagged your copy of Keepers yet, don’t forget it’s out in all good bookstores now, you can grab your copy here.

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads

The post 10 Best Books of 2017 and 10 YA Books to Look Out For in 2018 appeared first on Sacha Black.

There’s nothing better than an epiphany. It’s all gooey and warm on the inside, and on the outside it smothers my brain in a glass clear sensation of clarity.  

What follows is usually a brief flappy hand dance, a wide stare into the distance as my brain discombobulates and then has an epiphany.

That’s what the Emotion Thesaurus did to me the first time I read it. If you’re a writer and you don’t own a copy, then shame on you… You bloody ought to. To my absolute delight, I was given a copy of the latest installment in the emotion thesaurus series to review: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus.

Once again, I had one of those delightfully sticky and positively crystal clear moments. Each time Ackerman and Puglisi release a new book, it’s like my writing jumps another notch on the development scale.

I own every single book they’ve written and used them all extensively, so I feel safe when I say that this book is so good, it might even rival their original Emotion Thesaurus. In fact, does anyone have a Nobel prize for teaching writing? They need it.

People are bloody hard to understand, that’s why writing good books is so hard. Writers have to be psychologists. But the latest wound book takes all the pain out of it for you. Which brings me onto the epiphany I had…

What part of the book gave me an epiphany this time? Well, one quote about character need and resulting behavior literally blew my mind!

“…unmet needs have the power to direct behavior above all else, meaning, if the urgency is strong enough, needs can push characters to act even if their deepest, most debilitating fears are telling them not to.” P.21 The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, Ackerman and Puglisi.

Wait, whaaaaaaaat?

Can you hear the tiny pieces of my brain fragmenting and splitting as their atoms implode?

That is a hard truth of humanity, a fundamental causation of our behavior and if we, as writers, can understand that, we can understand how to push our protagonists into action in the second half of our books.

That little nugget of psychology should be driving our protagonists into our book’s climax. Whatever your hero wants, it’s still an unmet need. It should be so fundamental to their being they have no choice but to overcome their *fear/barrier the villain put in their way/insert some other fictional obstacle* don’t you seeeeee??????

That right there is a firework of character depth you just threw into your novel and when it explodes, it’s going to smear its juicy depth all over your pages!

That is just one of the golden delights in their book.

This book, in particular, goes deeper than any of their others. With a significant focus on teaching and the psychology of characters, you can find in-depth content on:

• Character Arcs
• Lies characters believe and why
• Needs
• Psychology of villains
• How a character redeems themselves
• How to create a wound
• How a character can redeem themselves
• How to create a wound effectively (as well as a look at what that means for their past)
• Factors that will affect a wound and what that will do to your character’s behavior.
• Big reveals
• Top tips on what classic mistakes to avoid
• A bazillion different types of character wound – and in each one they provide: examples, needs that are compromised, what the characters might fear, possible responses and results, personality traits, triggers, and opportunities to overcome their wound.

So yeah. GO BUY THE DAMN BOOK or karma save your writing soul!

AmazonCOM

AmazonUK

***

My Review:

What sets this apart from other writing craft books is the way it gets to the core of humanity’s psychology. If you want to understand a character, like truly, deeply and fundamentally know what pushes your protagonists to save the world time and time again, this is the book for you. But the magic of it is that it won’t just teach you about characters, it will teach you about people too.

This book is so many things: writing mentor and tutor, an encyclopedia of human psychology, inspiration bucket, reference tool, character development guide and so much more.

It gave me a number of personal epiphanies. Every time I read one of the Ackerman-Puglisi thesauri my writing jumps up a hundred developmental notches.

These thesauri are writing craft cult classics, that’s a fact. It’s also a fact that their latest Wound Thesauri MUST be in every writer’s reference collection.

10 stars out of 5.

The post How To Get Character Depth, or, The Best Freaking Writing Craft Book EVER! @angelaackerman appeared first on Sacha Black.

I had all these plans. Plans for my second non-fiction book to be about heroes or maybe characters more generally.

But like Lennon said,

“Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” 

And no matter what I do, it’s not characters I’m thinking about. It’s productivity. I mean, just two weeks ago, I wrote about productivity and Cal Newport’s book Deep Work.

I guess now I understand the phrase write what you know. Productivity is where my focus is at, so writing about anything else is proving difficult.

I feel like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar, when he’s desperate to tell a simple lie: he wants to say the pen is red when it’s blue. 

Only I’m trying to convince myself the next book I write is on characters when all that keeps coming out is productivity.

Balls.

Don’t you hate it when that happens?

“They see productivity as a scientific problem to systematically solve-” Cal Newport, DEEP WORK p.39

That was one of the quotes from two weeks ago, and I’m still thinking about it. See non-fiction books solve problems. I NEED to solve the productivity problem. I guess in the end, you have to face the fact the pen is blue and I have to write the damn book on productivity.

Which means I need your help.

I like doing research before I embark on a non-fiction project so that whatever I craft is fit for purpose. So below is a survey on productivity. With questions on your writing style, techniques, and problems. I’d be super grateful if you’d help me out and fill it in. It’s completely anonymous, I won’t know who you are and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

Let me know what your best tip for productivity is in the comments.

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads

Thank you in advance  

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The post The Productivity Problem #MondayBlogs #Amwriting appeared first on Sacha Black.

I finished my second book

I thought, given it’s my second book, and it feels like a milestone, I’d do some reflection. I’ve done a couple of these posts, one when I finished my first book (9 Secrets Successfully Completing That First Draft), and another after all the editing and completing the second draft (13 Things I learnt From Completing Draft Two)

This post is entirely selfish and just my observations about the development of my writing process, maybe you’ll find it useful, or maybe you can have a good chuckle at my incompetence.

The book I finished is 13 Steps to Evil, my non-fiction writing craft book that will teach you how to craft Superbad villains.

THING ONE – PACE DOES INCREASE

Completion of my first book was like watching paint dry or the slow mummification of my hope. It took a fucking age, and I swore I could not do it again. I HAD to speed up.

I’m not sure if it was the fact it was my second book, therefore, I had a modicum of a clue about how to write one. Or the fact it was non-fiction. Whatever the reason, writing it was faster, a shit load faster. Like Roadrunner tripping on acid faster.

The first book (Keepers, YA fantasy) two years to draft and edit to the point I could send it to beta readers. The first draft was 87k the second 78k.

13 Steps to Evil is only 49k, but still, instead of two years, I went from a title to handing it to beta readers in 11 weeks. ELEVEN.

That is ridiculous. Now I look back it all feels like a blur and is it really a surprise at that speed.  I must’ve spent my days in some kind of catatonic trance saving my energy so that I could regurgitate word vomit at Mach5 every evening.

All it’s done is make me extraordinarily hungry. And not the sausage and chips in your gob hungry, the – my insides are on fire, my head full of character screams, I gotta finish these fucking books before my ears bleed and my face melts into a gooey marsh pile of unfinished manuscripts – type hungry.

THING TWO- THE PROCESS KEEPS CHANGING 

It wasn’t just a speed that changed with this draft either. My process did too.  I’d heard a lot of good things about Dragon Dictation and the ability to write at supersonic light speed and who doesn’t want that in their life? Light speed is good; Lightspeed is wise. Lightspeed means pumping out a tontillion books a year and I’ll gladly take that, thank you very much.

I googled, I read, and I spent, a fuck bucket of money on getting tools and gadgety toys of word-speed joy and I started to use dictation. At first, I was sceptical, I mean 5000 words an hour? Pssht please, don’t give me that, nobody can write 5000 words hour. Except they can, and before long, I will too.

I’m going to write an extensive blog post about dictation and why I think you ought to use it, so I won’t go into too much detail today.  Suffice to say, the dictation gods, even using a crappy online app allowed me to triple my output, and now I have the glorious, sparkly, word churning machine that is Dragon dictation. And boy, does it give me literary O’s.

I used to get maybe 1000 to 1500 words per day, on a good day (for non-fiction). But I went to 2000 on the first dictation attempt and on the last attempt before I finished my book, I wrote 4500 words in one evening. ONE FREAKING EVENING PEOPLE.

Crazy shit is going to happen this year. Be scared. Seriously scared.

THING THREE – TAKING MY PANTS OFF AND SAYING GOODBYE

There is a second part to this process nonsense. I swing worse than a ‘keys in a bowl as you enter party’ my process is continually evolving. I’m not arrogant enough to think I found the right/my way to write a book yet, but I did think after a royal fuck up (involving the total rewrite of my first book) that I’d at least found some semblance of a process.

But no, I have not.

Sigh.

My first book I pantsed entirely through NaNoWriMo and let’s just say it was a pile of turdsickles. You know balls of scrunched up white paper smothered in blackish brown lines of drivel that you once thought were the equivalent of modern-day Shakespearean prose, only when you re-read it you realised it was less Shakespearean and more utter Shitsparian; a wonderful hybrid of utter shit and total despair.

But I soldiered on, and this time I didn’t need a rewrite.

What I did discover, though, is that my 100% pantsing days are over. One of my goals for 2017 is to write better quality first drafts as well as faster first drafts. Unfortunately for me, the more structure and outline and planning I do, the better my first draft.

But plotting induces a face pulling, eye gouging out, anvil to the head feeling. I’m hoping that feeling will get back in its box because I’m not giving up, once I set a goal, the outcome is mine, or I’ll die trying. If that means I need to implement a bit more rigour to my planning in order to write faster and produce better first drafts, then so be it. My inner whiny little bitch pantser is going to have to suck it up.

THING FOUR – NON-FICTION IS THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT

I don’t know what I expected when I started writing non-fiction. I mean, I’m a fiction writer, a Young Adult fantasy writer no less, what the fluckins was I thinking embarking on writing non-fiction? Except I write non-fiction every week. Everything I’ve ever learnt about writing, I’ve written up and slapped in a blog post.

That was a realisation in itself. Of course, I knew that my non-fiction voice was radically different to my fiction voice. But I didn’t know, know.

It was both significantly easier, and much harder to write 13 Steps To Evil. I’d been inadvertently practising my non-fiction voice for several years on here, so without meaning to, I’d developed it into a seasoned wrinkly granny with years of experience, that made it easier to write fast. Oddly for me, I feel my non-fiction voice is more developed than my fiction one.

The lesson here is, any kind of writing will develop your voice, not just book writing. 

The major difference was that the structure of the book for non-fiction is vital. You don’t have characters to make your story flow in a non-fiction book, the chapters and flow of content have to do that for you. That means more planning, (there’s that little plotter bitch again) more understanding of the content and lessons are trying to teach people and all before you start writing. You can’t just pants your way through a non-fiction book unless you want it to read like puke flavoured moth balls. The structure is essential. I won’t talk about the five full restructures I had to do, because even the thought is making my eye twitch!

WHAT’S CHANGED ABOUT YOUR WRITING PROCESS OVER TIME? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS

If you liked this post, why not get even more awesome writing tips in the book 13 Steps To Evil – How to Craft Superbad Villains. Click this link and just tap the logo of your device or regular bookshop and it will take you to the right page. You can also get a FREE villains cheatsheet and a villain’s short course by joining my mailing list just click here.

Read Keepers, the first book in my Young Adult fantasy series now. Or to hear more about the release of the sequels as well as get regular CogMail updates you can do so here.

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads

The post 4 Things That Develop As You Write More Books appeared first on Sacha Black.

Once in awhile, you read a book that changes everything.

For me, it’s usually the ones that make me grip the kitchen counter because I need a minute to get a grip of the quivering and bug-eyed daze I’m in. In those seconds, I have a literary, emotional or philosophical ‘O’. A synchronizing of minds with my Muse, its heart beat, pumping in time with mine, pouring inspiration, epiphanies, and unadulterated universal clarity into my consciousness.

Sometimes I just smile, because the epiphany I had, is a small emotional win. Like the fact that when you can’t heal from something in your past, it’s because you haven’t let it go. If you want a scab to heal, you have to stop picking it.

Other times, the revelation is much more significant. I physically pause for thought because the story has just reiterated how inconsequentially small my life is in relation to the infinite enormity of the universe.

I like to think of these moments of pause as reaffirming moments of philosophy and truth. When it happens, that book stays with me forever. That author has single-handedly changed a part of me. Forget meditative yoga retreats and six-week long vows of silence. All you need is a bloody good book, with a bloody good book truth buried inside it and that’s enough to open someone’s mind, shove a whisk in it and jingle jangle their brain cells into a new alignment.

I want my books to have a book truth because I want to give somebody else that moment of clarity and change the way they view the world. If everybody could change just one person, maybe the world would be a better place. What I do know is, whenever an author has done that to me, I’ve read everything they’ve ever written. Isn’t that every author’s dream? So here’s a few lessons I’ve learned about book truths.

What is a book truth?

There is something buried at the core of every book. Like the seed in an apple, it’s something that creates the essence of your book.

And I don’t mean your books theme. Your book’s theme can usually be summed up in one word. Some kind of fundamental thing or concept. For example in the Hunger Games, the theme is sacrifice. Like any theme, it’s conveyed throughout the book, but that doesn’t make it a book truth.

A book truth is a lesson. And the beauty of learning is that everyone interprets lessons differently. Which is why the book truth I discover might be different to the book truth someone else discovers.

I call it a lesson, because the magic of learning is that once you do learn something you can’t unlearn it. And that means you have to do something about that knowledge.

Non-Fiction Book Truths

Last week, read Stephen Pressfield’s Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit (AmazonUK, AmazonUSA.

The main lesson I took from it was that Non-fiction should be written using a fiction story structure. I slept on that thought and when I woke up and slurped on my morning coffee, I had a sudden gutwrenching realization. I was royally fucked. I needed to completely restructure my non-fiction book on creating better villains called: 13 Steps to Evil.

I’d learned a lesson and I couldn’t unlearn it. That meant I had to do something about it.

There was no going back. Like that moment you walking into your parents bedroom and they’re having sex. You can’t un-see that shit, and I couldn’t unlearn the lesson. I had to restructure.

FudgeBunkingCrackSacks.

Now, Non-fiction’s book truths are different to fiction ones, but the principle remains the same. It’s a lesson.

Fiction & Film Book Truths

Disney and Pixar are super amazetastic when it comes to book truths. They seem to pop them out like an M&Ms or jellybeans binge at the cinema.

I pick on Disney because they make their truths so obvious. And why not, it’s for kids sometimes they need shit wafted in their face.

Finding Nemo, if you haven’t seen it (shame on you), is about two fish; a father and son. The dad (Marlin) lost all his babies and his wife in one go. The only baby he had left, was Nemo a little fishy with a damaged fin, who Marlin then mollycoddles. Nemo, in a bout of rebellion, gets lost in the ocean and taken thousands of miles away. Marlin in his search for his son he realises when he finds it that all along Nemo was fine. Marlin searches the ocean for him and when he finds him, he’s fine and managed perfectly okay. This makes Marlin realise that he has to let Nemo go. We all have to let our kids go and fly the nest and let them live and breathe and make their own mistakes.

Planes is another film that my son likes to make me watch regularly, and by regularly I mean, EVERY FREAKING DAY.

The protagonist is a crop duster called Dusty. He’s has had enough of spraying crops and wants to do see the world by being a racer plane.  Everyone around him mocks him and tries to make him stay as he is. But he refuses, fights on, and manages to secure a place in the world’s biggest race.  The film’s truth comes from a little car that can transform into a plane. He says:

“…thanks from all of us that want to do more than what we were just built for.” Franz, Planes.

What he’s saying, and what Dusty proves, is that you don’t have to accept what anyone else ‘thinks’ you should do, and you don’t have to do what you were built for. This stories truth is that you can be anybody you want if you try hard enough.

Last two quick, well known examples. I mentioned the Hunger Games earlier, and its theme was sacrifice. Well, Suzanne Collins has linked her theme to the truth. In the first Hunger Games, the truth is that you can and will win if you’re willing to sacrifice everything.

And in Harry Potter, it’s truth is that love can save you.

What was the book truth in the last book you read? Let me know in the comments below.

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The post Authors – Find Your Book’s Inner Truth & Hook Readers For Life appeared first on Sacha Black.

I don’t mind admitting I’m a selfish reader. I’ve always read exactly what I want for no other reason than, I felt like it. So I never paid much attention to whether or not it was useful or beneficial. But now, as a writer, whilst I still need some of that escapism by falling into a good book, I’ve come to realise I also need to read to aid my writing – and I’m not just talking about non fiction books that teach you writing skills. This is part one in a two part series, looking at reading like a writer – reading what you NEED and reading what you WANT.

When I was at school I hated Shakespeare. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand any of his wordy sentences, or the elaborate metaphors. I figured he was just another drunk writer that got famous after he died. But then, my discontent was probably more to do with the prescription of school and the incessant deconstruction of texts, than Shakespeare himself. It wasn’t until I voluntarily picked up Shakespeare in my teens that I really grew a deep appreciation for him.

I outlined my writing process and 8 steps to discover your own perfect process last week. I’m drawing close to the end of the first draft of my novel and as a result have started to think about second and third drafts and what might need doing, which led me to Shakespeare. In my second and third drafts come the detail and description.

Whilst I have lots of ideas and a vivid imagination to create plots worlds and characters, as someone who primarily learned to write academic stuff, actually being able to convey the images in my head with enough poetic description to conjure fantastical worlds for readers, takes more practice than I’ve had. I need a parrot constantly sitting on my shoulder barking “Context, Context, Description,” reminders at me. I’m referring to similes, metaphors, and descriptively evocative passages.

So as a writer, that’s what I NEED to read. I need to find novels, passages, and poetry that are spectacular examples of creating vivid imagery through context and description. Who better than Shakespeare himself. (yes there are lots of writers I could have looked at, but I fancied a bit of Shakespeare today!)

Do you know what your weaknesses are as a writer? Could your dialogue do with a brush up? Maybe your characters aren’t quite as full of life as you would like, or maybe your world hasn’t come across the way you thought it would. None of us are perfect. So there will be something you can work on. If you don’t know what you need to develop, then ask someone else. Ask a trusted person who won’t crush you, but will be honest at the same time. When you work out what you need to practice, research writers who excel at it.

It’s ironic that I hated the thought of deconstructing Shakespeare at school, and now that’s exactly what I am about to do! Although there’s a lot we can learn from Shakespeare, for the purposes of this post, and in support of thinking about my next draft I’m focusing specifically on his poetic style and ability to create spectacular imagery.

My favourite passage of Shakespeare’s depicts this beautifully. It’s slightly dark but I adore the imagery and tragic metaphors in it. I give you, Macbeth’s final soliloquy:

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

I’ve bolded the bit that I really love.

‘Life’s but a walking shadow’ in other words life’s just an illusion. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a powerful image. It reminds me of Peter Pan’s shadow, prancing around mocking the kids in Wendy’s nursery. I think the way he takes ‘life’ such a complex concept and uses such a simple comparison to draw a powerful image is quite frankly awe inspiring. But that’s the point, right? Use imagery to turn complex concepts into simple images. Sounds simple… *slaps forehead, pulls at face – wishes it was that simple*.

‘a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more.’ A poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Such a sad image; an actor who works slaves for lifetime, practicing through the blood sweat and tears to finally get a break and then, only gets 15 minutes of fame. Forgotten forever, like the army of hopeful thespians who came before him, and the budding recruits yet to come. Sad, yet cuttingly true – not everyone can be famous.

The last line, ‘It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.’

Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning. Not sure how comfortable I am with the sweeping generalization we’re all idiots! But I get his point. We do get caught up in the mundane, or caught up in the shallow intricacies of fads and social hierarchy, and that ultimately is meaningless. Does he really mean that life is meaningless? I hope not, I like to think he is making a point that Macbeth’s life was pointless – he spent it doing despicable acts, and if you do the same, then at the end, life becomes meaningless. Macbeth lived the life of a shadow, an illusion of life.

Isn’t that a wonderful image? Ok, I read into a lot, and the average reader skims through words at a thousand knots trying to get to the end of the chapter, see what happens next. But if I can convey even a slither of that imagery I would be a happy lady.

Tell me in the comments below: do you know what your weakness is? If so, what is it? And what authors do you (or will you) try and learn from?

The post Learn To Read Like A Writer – Read What You NEED appeared first on Sacha Black.

It has taken me an inexplicably long time to read just one book. I am actually a reasonably fast reader I can sink a few books in a week if I have the time. Alas, baby Black has prevented this from happening, and shamefully, not only is this the first book I’ve finished this year, but worse this particular book has taken me way over six months to read. Tut. But huzzah I have finally finished it.

I have only (from memory) written one other book review, for A Disturbed Girl’s Guide to Curing Boredom, because I loved it so much I felt compelled to write about it on amazon and goodreads and such like.

But having read a few posts recently, about the benefits of book reviews, and the difficulty people face getting genuine ones; I figured it was my duty (as a budding writer) to review every book I read henceforth. So I will, and I will post them here, because where better? I will also reference them on my Reading for leisure list. But more importantly, I am going to try and sway the percentage of books I read towards the indie end, there are a couple of traditionally published books out this year, I have been waiting for, but otherwise, I am going to take a leaf out of Dylan’s book and ‘Pay It Forward‘

I’m caveating this review because I have no idea if I will say the right things… feel free to tell me if I have missed anything that should be covered in a review…?

To the book – Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld can be found on Amazon if you are interested in buying it.

The Amazon Book Blurb:

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an ‘Ugly’ into a ‘Pretty’. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen – but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn’t sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest – the Rusty Ruins – where Uglies go to escape ‘ turning’. Tally won’t be persuaded to join her, as this would involve sacrificing everything she’s ever wanted for a lot of uncertainty. When she is taken in for questioning on her birthday, however, Tally gets sent to the Ruins anyway – against her will. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she could ever imagine: find her friend Shay and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. What she discovers in the Ruins reveals that there is nothing ‘pretty’ about the transformations… And the choice Tally makes will change her world forever.

MY REVIEW:

I was originally drawn to Uglies, because it is comes from my favourite genre. YA Fantasy/Dystopian fiction. But also that’s what I am trying to write so I have been consuming everything I can get my hands on! Most (not all) books in this genre are written in the first person. Anyone who has read this blog for a while would know, I have a strong distaste for third person novels… unless they are written so well I can’t tell. I’ve even ranted about the third person POV, in the third person POV! So when I started reading Uglies, I did struggle to get passed the POv. I found myself annoyed by the protagonists name being littered across every page, and multiple ‘Tally felt this, or that,’ made the character’s emotions seem dubious at best.

That being said the concept of this dystopian setting was fantastic. I think it’s highly relevant to the model and surgery obsessed teens of today. What a pertinent and timely reminder to readers of the YA genre of the dangerous surgery and looks obsessions pose. For it’s appropriateness as a moral and ethical centrepiece for its targeted age group, I salute it. I would happily go under the knife, and It made me stop and think.

This book was painfully slow to start, I nearly gave up on a number of occasions. But several friends who have read it to the end encouraged me to persist because it ‘gets better’ as do the sequels (so they say). So I persisted, and to a certain extent they were right.

The book speeds up, eventually, but not until precisely 64% of the way through. I say 64% ‘exactly’ because, judge me not, I read the thing on my iPad kindle app. The point is I actually took note of when I started to enjoy the story. 64% is too far in to have kept me captive under normal circumstances, if it wasn’t for my friends I would have given up at 30%. I am a fan of speed, pace and action, this book does not give that until two thirds of the way through. And yes, I get that theres a story arc and most of the tension and climax comes at the end. But the world setting and history filling in, was too long, and too slow. I can’t for the life of me even remember what happened before 64%.

Sadly I didn’t feel much of anything for the protagonist either,ok, I did, a bit. But I didn’t cry, or get worried and feel bereft when I finished the book, and believe me, some books definitely do that to me.

By the end of the book, I was reasonably satisfied because it had action and was pacey. But, in the last couple of chapters, there were long paragraphs of description, it felt like the author was running out of words, and couldn’t afford the dialogue. The ending itself was not overly satisfying. It ended, and some storylines were closed. However, it was left wide open for the sequels, so much so, I didn’t really feel like I got closure on anything. I know that series are meant to be left open, (we have to make money somehow) but shouldn’t a book also give closure inself? I think so.

Would I recommend this book? If you read this genre regularly, then you will probably love it. At the moment, I expect the spectacular, I want to be wowed and inspired to write, not feel like I could do better. But, if you like YA fantasy/dystopian fiction then I would say, give it a go. If you don’t, don’t waste your time.

At a push, 3 out of 5.

The post Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld appeared first on Sacha Black.

I don’t need to tell you that if you are a writer, you need to be able to read, and read well.

You need to be able to read for the love of it, to glean inspiration from it, to pick out strengths and weaknesses from it, and to critique it in order to learn from it. The other lesson I have learnt is that you need to be able to read both widely across varied genres as well as reading deeply into the genre you write.

This is the start of a set of new series for my blog, this one in particular is on reading like a writer.

This first post is on:

Reading Non Fiction 

I don’t even pretend to be a non fiction reader. Can’t stand it. Much to my father’s – who is a purely non fiction reader- disgust, I am a out and out fiction reader. I have no shame in losing myself in a story, delving into the characters, and disappearing into new worlds. I struggle to read non fiction because quite honestly I find it boring, I hate the lack of story and complete absence of characters.

However, in the last month or so I have come to realise that this way of thinking is a smidgen naive. Here’s why:

I recently developed an interest in space, physics and the concept of ‘alternative history’ more specifically the ancient astronaut theory. Just an interest mind – I haven’t suddenly converted to anything odd!

Anyway, the only way I could find out more was to research online, which I did, but everything I was finding out seemed to lack depth. There were articles, and opinions, and some interesting pictures. But I couldn’t quite get the detailed knowledge I wanted. Cue the search for Non Fiction books. The first two non fictions books I have found and started reading are:

‘A Brief History of Time‘ by Stephen Hawking

&

‘Aliens in Ancient Egypt‘ by Xaviant Haze

Both fascinating and giving me the depth I was seeking. But more importantly I already I have a million ideas for new stories. One of my pledges for this year is to read more, but in particular Non Fiction. I won’t be reading just non fiction because its too heavy and I would fail miserably. I want to read a minimum of 12 books this year, a far cry from the 2 or 3 I could sink a week before baby black was born, but still. If I do at least 12 this year I would be ecstatic.

What have I learnt about starting to read non fiction?

1. Non fiction (can – depending on what you read) provide interesting facts, ideas, new thoughts, new lessons, new concepts, new everything.

2. It can open your mind to completely new… everything. It will lead anyone with half a cell of imagination into world upon world of new ideas, places and characters.

3. You learn from it, and in topics your interested in

4. You build knowledge = building skills = more ideas = better writer

5. You can find new hobbies or interests and even better, build knowledge of those areas

Does anyone out there read non fiction? If so, what types of books/topics? How do you find reading non fiction versus fiction? If you don’t read it, then I hope you try a non fiction book this year, trust me when I tell you slogging through is absolutely worth it, if nothing else, to improve your writing.

The post The Reading Like a Writer Series #1 – Reading Non Fiction appeared first on Sacha Black.