River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt by Wilbur A. Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A bloody hippo hunt, the intricacies of ancient Egyptian culture, this book is entertaining from first to last.
Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Preposterous, silly, flat, annoying, and not-the-least-engaging. In fact, the preceding should be the five factions. I can’t finish it. Life’s too short. The only reason I gave it one extra star is because it’s ambitious, and I’m nice.
Unrelenting darkness, despair, and hopelessness. How could I give this five stars? Because it tore me up. It made me feverish with desire for the tiniest speck of hope – right along with the characters. I felt them completely, and that translates to a profoundly engaging experience. Most importantly, it made me love our beautiful planet with a depth I’ve never known. If you’re not prone to depression, I highly recommend this inexorably bleak, horrifically moving novel.
The skeleton (PLOT) provides a structure upon which to build, its marrow rich with potential. It is not a rigid thing, but bends at the joints (SCENES) in a limitless variety of shapes and postures.
Tendons (STORY-CRAFT) hold the organism together so it can move where it will without falling apart.
The circulatory system delivers blood (EMOTION) to every tissue, courses with love, pulses with fear, flows with hope, shame, regret . . . and bleeds. Oh how it bleeds.
Muscles (CHARACTERS) move. They run, leap, march, stumble, dance, fold, and rest. They take your hand and invite you (READER) to join them, strong and reassuring, because if weak and insipid, they remain forever alone in their pages, their very existence threatened.
The throat, tongue, teeth and lips (VOICE) speak in all the variations of the human soul and psyche. When timid, they inspire a need to protect. When bold, they raise the spirit. A quiet whisper brings a tingle. A groan evokes dread. A murmur inspires a deep and needful longing. Quirkiness and irony shape a smile.
The nervous system (SETTING) provides the basis for sensation, the nuance of everything felt, the smells in buildings and forests, of paper and cream, the pungent reek of fear. The colors of light and water, a gibbous moon, a shiny beetle on a snapdragon stem, the coolness of night wafting across the skin, the sound of birds and quiet moans, the ripping terror of a distant scream.
Lungs (THEME) breathe a subtle current, the wisdom gained from successes, failures, and outcomes, the subtext of dialogue, the profound meanings of metaphor. They manage the flow of oxygen, which is the fuel of transformation (CHARACTER ARC).
The heart (CONFLICT) must pump. It is the engine that drives the body forward, at times calm but it also threatens to burst, beating a dire rhythm that walks, marches, or crawls unfailingly, to the end.
The brain (TECHNICAL) commands an army of words. Nouns and verbs are the elite force, their value unquestioned. Well chosen, few are needed to complete their mission. They make careful use of their support staff of Adjectives. Pronouns, while necessary, are always in danger of being dismissed to wait in their bunks until needed, while adverbs must fight for their right to exist on the page, and in a good story, they often lose.
Whether STORY is told while gathered at low fires, or rattling along battered landscape on the wheels of chariots, chugging in boxcars on the hobo’s lips, rustling in the pages of a cherished book, riding the static of ancient radios, sizzling on screens, or dancing the wireless electrons that permeate the modern world, it is a living organism that has been and will always be with us, as long as there is consciousness to give it life.
Grandma was a pillow
She twirled my pigtails
The Greyhound bus pushed through the fog
Like a shovel through Virginia
We bumped on in to coal country
Mama skittered like rain on hard ground
Cigarette ash long and curved
Irradiating her cheek in a sullen glow
We road the bus forever
Bucking the furrowed road
She said
My roots are in Virginia.
And planted a sideways glance
Green eyes spiked with thorns
Seeking moisture
She tipped the bottle like a trumpet
Grandma’s damp affection
Unbreathable
The studded metal roof
Faces formed of rusted rivets
Screeching brakes mimicked
The claws of nausea that raked my gut
Mama took my left hand
Grandma my right
I spewed into the weeds
At Piggly Wiggly
We crouched together
The road – a black ribbon
Tied up the mountains
Clothed in September reds
Stitched with asphalt
Edged with glinting gold
The periwinkle sky peeked but
Clouds dominated
Exhausted we arrived
Houses tossed like pickup sticks
Rickety in the Appalachian ambiance
The door creaked, uninviting
A witch’s maw
Chairs shrouded in smudged sheets
Ghost piano draped in linen shadows
Grim tables
Sunken couch
Phantom light through coal blackened windows
Opaque
A vapor of forgotten memories
Mama was a girl here
Not yet sodden
Downtrodden
We disturbed the air
Sluggish tornadoes, unaccustomed to swirling
The house pushed me out like
Oil paint from a tube
A splotch of pink
In an abstraction of mute
The house perched a cliff
Backyard plunged vertical
Patterned green, a dizzy portrait of
Fall, a season and a danger
The bottom, just a theory
I edged back from the edge
Then carried on a whisper
A southern voice
My city eyes widened
The neighbor lady spoke
I’m Theresa.
Are you Bunny’s little girl?
Is she back?
Honey child – she was a beauty.
A dog barked at her window
Theresa clipped snippets of memory like violets
And offered me a handful.
Your Mama sang and danced
Graceful as a willow
Famous round these parts
Well loved
She went a hoppin’ off
You favor her, you know that?
My eyes brushed down, face burning
A late, tender shoot, innocent as a curl
Brushed my sneaker toe, interesting
Among the browned grass
A disobedient tear zigzagged
Wended its way to my chin
A rope of regret like saltwater taffy
Stretched between us
I ran inside in a bashful flurry
To the kitchen
Corners cloaked in darkness
Grandma pulled at white bread
Slapped turkey on a paper plate
Mama clutched a bottle
Leaned against the oilcloth table
Blue shirt smudged
“Where did you go?, she cried.
Eyes, narrow green.
There was nothing I could do
But search for candles
HOW EMBARRASSING! Too quick!
Once again, impatience overrides prudence. The draft for The Apocalypse Gene book trailer was finally complete, and the first thing I did was post it on Facebook. It got a bunch of hits and a positive response. Then I realized my mistake. The hit counter was going up up up on the DRAFT, which means when I post the final trailer, I’d have to ask everyone to kindly hit it again so I have an accurate count.
This isn’t the first time impatience got the better of me and it won’t be the last.
When the final book trailer is ready, I’ll blast it everywhere. Until then, I will sit on my hands and WAIT.
Over the past several days, in a frenzy of activity, we’ve managed to nearly fill up every slot for our October blog tour for The Apocalypse Gene, started a giveaway at Goodreads and uploaded an excerpt, gotten the lead story in our local paper, snagged at least 12 new reviews from YA bloggers, gotten over 60 people to put it on the to-read shelf, and best of all, received a glowing Kirkus review.
However, now that Monday has arrived, if I don’t get caught up on my day job, I’ll be marketing The Apocalypse Gene from my new home in a cardboard box on Wacker Drive. In other words, I have to leave my labor of love for a while and turn my attention, full-beam, on my labor of DRUDGE.
Here’s to dreaming up new stories with one half of my brain while the other half is numb with boredom.
Later!
Suki
