Author: cherylmahoney

I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).

How to Set Up Writing as a Productive Process

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations1 Comment

Today we have a guest post from Larry Heart.  He’s sharing top tips on how to effectively manage freelance writing work, with advice for writers with broader interests too!

Writing is a rewarding experience for those who enjoy working for themselves. If you want to take up writing as a career it has many benefits. It is creative, you have the opportunity to work from home, and it is financially rewarding. However many people who take up writing do not always realize it is also a difficult occupation which needs to be properly structured if it is to be successful. We at our writing jobs site have made a little survey, where we asked our writers to share their experience. We’ve converted the most popular opinions into tips for you:

1. Organize your time: Writing takes discipline and it requires definite time frameworks. Apart from the research and the preparation of the work, you can only write so many words per minute. Then you need to proofread and edit your work. To ensure you are able to keep to the deadlines, you need to plan your time properly.

2. Organize your space: You need to have a dedicated space where you work. It does not have to be large, but it needs to be yours. You cannot write properly if you are surrounded by people and noise. You need a space that is quiet and private, where you can set up your computer and focus on your work without interruptions. It can be a dedicated room, or even a corner in your bedroom, where you can shut the door and be alone.

3. Organize your equipment: You need a computer, Microsoft Word, a desk where you can work and a chair that is comfortable. As you will spend considerable time sitting in the chair, ensure you get one that is suitable. You cannot write properly if your back aches.

4. Write what motivates you: Be reasonably selective in the tasks you accept. Try to stay within your range of interest. It is very difficult to write on a subject on which you have no knowledge. If you write within your field then you will already have a basic background of the task at hand and your research will be directed to enlighten specific points.

5. Do only one task at a time: Resist the temptation to try to write two or more tasks at the same time. This will lead to confusion. Take a task then complete it before starting on the next one.

6. Concentrate on the topic at hand: When you are busy with a task ensure you focus on it. When you are researching do not start making notes about the next task you have to write. Simply work on the one at hand as if it is the only one you have to do.

If you learn to organize and to balance your time, create a space and set a pace for your work, then you will find writing rewarding as a career and financially.

Quotable Scot Bondlow

On By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable1 Comment

“As I understand it, the point of good writing is the same as the joy of travel: to go somewhere else.”

– Scot Bondlow

Classic Review: A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult3 Comments

One of my favorite funny authors growing up (and still, to some extent) was Gordon Korman.  Several of his books still make me laugh out loud, after repeated reading.  One of my favorites, for its humor and its philosophy, is A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag.  Gordon Korman understands stress.

He’s also an author who proved just how awesome he is–I emailed him after I posted this review, and got a very nice email back!

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Every high school student should read this book.  Actually, everyone should read it, if only for the metaphor of the title.  A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bagby Gordon Korman sounds utterly ridiculous–and it is.  It is a hysterical, hilarious, wonderful book.

My slightly battered, much-loved copy

But the title is actually remarkably profound.  It’s based on a one-scene reference (like To Kill a Mockingbird‘s title) when the main character describes a commercial for garbage bags.  The garbage bag is hooked up to a machine that keeps pumping in more and more pounds of pressure, and the smiling spokesman talks about how much pressure the bag is taking.  He keeps on cranking it up, while the poor bag is struggling to hold together.  Sound like high school to anyone?  Or life, for that matter?

The main character in the book is Raymond Jardine.  He has no luck.  Zero, zip, zilch.  His overriding dream is to somehow make it Theamelpos, an island in Greece which he is convinced grants extraordinary luck to all visitors.  Six students will be selected (methodology unknown) for a school trip this summer, and Jardine is determined to lie, steal, cheat, scheme, and connive his way into one of those six slots.

And that’s just the beginning of the story.  We’re guided through the book by the comparatively normal Sean Delancey, who is paired with Jardine for an English assignment.  Korman often takes the wise tactic of giving us someone relatively sane as a lead character, who can navigate us through the wild and wacky world of the book, where anything is possible.

Where it’s perfectly normal, for instance, for students to surf on trays down tables in the cafeteria–the temperature in the cafeteria is typically around 90 degrees, because the school is powered by the experimental SACGEN, which all the students know doesn’t work but which the school board is determined to insist is a great triumph.  That’s just one example of the world we find ourselves in.

The English assignment Sean and Jardine have to do together is a 30 page report on a poet of their choice.  Jardine is determined to pick a poet no one else will do (reasoning that if they pick a famous poet, another group will too, the teacher can compare the two reports, and his is bound to be worse).  Literally minutes before the deadline to choose, Jardine selects Gavin Gunhold, the author of “Registration Day.”  They rave to their teacher about how much they love Gunhold’s work, and find out later that he never wrote anything else, having died in a freak accident shortly after writing his only poem.  Their solution is start writing their own poetry in Gunhold’s style, using for inspiration words they pick at random from the encyclopedia.

As to Gunhold’s one original poem:

On registration day at taxidermy school
I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose
Move.

I’m not usually a fan of poetry, and I have probably quoted Gavin Gunhold more often than almost any other poet.

A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag is packed with memorable characters, funny scenes, and even an explosion or two.  You will get your money’s worth in laughs out of this book.  And surely everyone can relate, at least a little, to how Jardine feels about that garbage bag?

Author’s website: www.gordonkorman.com

Becoming a Geek Celebrity

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews13 Comments

I seem to be meeting a lot of geeks lately.  That sounds a little odd, but it does make sense–I’ve connected into a few different social circles that seem to attract geeks (and by the way, they all defy the stereotype about socially awkward, reclusive geeks).

It’s great fun, because we all have some of the same touchpoints, and the important ones are not the same as the important general pop culture ones.  You know–Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, certain board games, certain authors.  There are certain people too.  Neil Gaiman is apparently The World’s Coolest Author; not just because of his books, but he personally seems to be amazing.  George Takei is the Geek King of Facebook (follow him if you want to be in on all the geek memes).

And lately, Wil Wheaton is emerging as the Geek Celebrity.  Not for anything in particular–just for being a geeky celebrity.  I mean, besides a recurring role as himself on The Big Bang Theory, he has an online show focused on playing board games.  Really.

All this made me curious.  How did Wesley Crusher become the Geek Celebrity?  So I read Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton.  It would probably make him happy that I read it more because I’m curious about who he’s become lately than because of Wesley.  I never actively disliked Wesley, but I was never much of a fan either, so that wasn’t that big a draw.

Just a Geek is a memoir, but one that covers a very narrow period.  It’s a couple of years from roughly 2001-2002, and charts how Wheaton went from a washed-up celebrity trying to escape Star Trek to coming to terms with Wesley Crusher and publishing his first book.  This was published in 2004 so it’s hardly the complete story of how he got to the present (obviously), but it does describe the turning point.

Some sections of the book are lifted directly from Wheaton’s blog, and the feel of the entire book is much like that.  You do get the sense of Wil Wheaton sitting down to tell you about his life and his experiences.  In some ways, what has stuck with me the most is the raw honesty of it all.  He talks about being depressed or angry or disliking something, in a way that people (at least in public forums) usually don’t.  He talks about deep positive emotions too, especially being incredibly moved by Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, stepping back on the bridge of the Enterprise–D.

If his intent was to convince people that he’s a regular guy, that’s definitely how he comes across.  We usually see only a couple of visions of celebrities, and this is neither.  Wheaton is not the self-destructing celebrity on the cover of Us Weekly, or the serene dispenser of wisdom that shows up on Parade.  He’s just a normal guy who’s a bit geeky.  Despite the title, the geekiness didn’t feel like that big of a focus to me–it was mostly “life as a struggling actor.”  But he did get an introduction from Neil Gaiman, so there are obviously geek connections here.

In a way I’m sorry to say that the most memorable parts did turn out to be Star Trek related.  The journey and personal growth are interesting, but my favorite parts involved other Star Trek celebrities; it happens in a few places.  Unless you’re really interested in Wil Wheaton, I wouldn’t read this without a working knowledge of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the actors involved (which, if you’re really interested in Wil Wheaton, you probably have anyway).  It’s not a consuming focus but it is spread throughout the book, and there isn’t always much context provided.  In a way, Star Trek IS the context of the book.

Since Wheaton is honest, I suppose I’ll be strictly honest too on my assessment.  I enjoyed the book.  It gave me what I wanted, which was some idea of how Wil Wheaton became a geek touch point beyond the Starship Enterprise.  But I didn’t love it and I don’t think I’ll run out to read something else by him.  I’m just not enough of a fan of his writing or of him–and it’s a very personality-driven book.  I should note there’s no reason for that.  It’s just one of those things, what-does-and-doesn’t-speak-to-you.

But I will be hoping for another Big Bang Theory cameo, and I will recommend the book–if you’re a geek.

Author’s Site: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

Other reviews:
Stainless Steel Droppings
Just a Writer Geek
Reading by Candlelight
Anyone else?

Saturday Snapshot: First and Last Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot20 Comments

I thought I’d share a couple of recent book purchases this week.

A Tale of Time City is one of the first Diana Wynne Jones books I ever read, and oddly enough, is the first of her books I’ve deliberately set out to buy.  I’ve read many, many of her books, but all from the library, and the only ones I own are ones I happened to stumble on at a library book sale, or got as a gift.  My collection is woefully small, and I thought I’d better do something about that–so I started by buying this lovely new edition of one of my favorites.

The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery is my last L. M. Montgomery book.  I have read and own every other published book of her writing.  Novels, short stories, poetry, letters, journals, autobiography–I have it all.  This is the last one.  At least, until someone, somewhere, somehow decides to publish the 200-odd additional short stories that exist in an archive but are not currently available.  In the meantime, I’ll just have to have a bittersweet read through the last new-to-me book of L. M. Montgomery writing. Although the name makes me laugh–having read everything else, I’ve read her journals where she commented that she didn’t like having her full name written out.  Now I’m always amused when people do that!

Visit At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!