The Other Typist – by Suzanne Rindell – Review and Giveaway

I was recently sent an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of the book “The Other Typist” by Suzanne Rindell. Because of my work as a writer, blogger, and yes a book reviewer on another site, I tend to get books sent to me on fairly regular basis.

Which, is sometimes a good thing and other times it’s not.

When this book arrived, I sighed. I have sooo many books to read in my to-read pile (can you relate?) but still, the book size (trade paper) and the cover art got my attention.

The Other Typist takes place in 1923 and is the story of Rose Baker who is a typist in a police station. IT is her  job to record criminal’s confessions.

I turned it over to read the back:

“Get ready for the year’s most fascinating unreliable narrator…”

Huh?

And then there was this little beauty by Alice LaPlante author of Turn of Mind:

“Eerie and compelling … a riveting page-turner… Don’t start this novel at night if you need your beauty sleep – you’ll stay up to all hours devouring its pages.”

Another review made reference to the book as a “page-turner” a phrase so overused in book reviews as to make it meaningless.  A few alarms went off in my mind – yeah right, is what I basically thought.

Even though I was busy, even though I had tons of work to do, I opened the book and read a few pages. I just want to get the feel of the book, I told myself.

That night Marc made dinner and I continued to read.

My nightly Criminal Minds (we only get basic cable and so Criminal Minds is pretty much all we watch) fest was ignored as I sat in my chair and read.

I stayed up late to keep reading.

The next morning, I got up early to read before I started my work.

Yes. It is that good.

So what makes this book so literally page-turning?

There are several things.  This book is definitely not a one trick pony. First of all, the main character, Rose, grabs your attention on page one and then she drills a hole into your brain and stays there. You can’t help but think about her after you’ve put the book down. Like a thought just out of reach, impossible to solidify, you keep thinking – what is it that is wrong with Rose?

There’s just something not quite right about her, but what? Because it’s a narrated story from Rose’s point of view, you are privy to her thoughts and so you are in the driver’s seat right beside her as you see the inevitable train crash coming.

But you can’t do anything except hold on tight because Rose doesn’t see what is so very clearly in her path.

Another page-turning aspect? The writing, my Lord, the writing is sublime. Here’s an example:

“So I was surprised one day when Odalie emerged from the interrogation room and exclaimed, “He is just absolutely the law itself, isn’t he?” As we were not in the habit of making conversation, I looked around to see who she could possibly be talking to. The days were getting noticeably shorter by then. We were headed into the long black nights of winter, and although it was only four o’clock, outside a cloudy sky was already turning from ash to soot. And yet inside the office there was still something vital, the peculiar sort of kindling that comes from human activity buzzing away in the falling dark of dusk. The electric lights still glowed, and the office thrummed with the sounds of telephones, voices, papers, footsteps, and the syncopated clacking of many typewriters all being operated at once. It could very well be day or night, outside for all anyone cared: at that exact moment, everyone was quite busy, absorbed in what they were doing. And there was Odalie – still standing in front of her desk, facing me, her question (rhetorical though it was) still hanging in the air unanswered. I looked up at her and I remember – I remember this image quite clearly – the bare electric blub that dangled above her cast a perfect shimmering halo around the crown of her head, a perfect corona of light caught in the sheen of her silky black bobbed hair.

“Yes,” I stammered after a while. “The Sergeant is an excellent man.””

So much is packed into this paragraph. We are privy to Rose’s thought process as she struggles to respond to a simple statement. We become incredibly uncomfortable for her, as she stumbles to figure out social interaction.

Please what is up with this chick?

There are so many more examples of this extraordinary writing that this book is worth the price for anyone to read just for its literary excellence.

And then there is the story. You’ll be reading along and a clue, a bit of stunning information is brilliantly dropped into the story as casually as if someone were commenting on the weather. There were several places where I had to go back to reread a passage.

Did it really say what I thought it said? Are you kidding me?

Using the book-review-overused, but yet, in this case, very apt turn of phrase, this “page-turner” will constantly gnaw at you. The Other Typist will seep into your brain. You will think about the book when it is in your hands, and you’ll be wondering about Rose and Odelie when it is not.

In short, go out and read this book. You will not be sorry.

Now for the fun part, the publicist has agreed to send a copy of The Other Typist to someone from this blog. Leave a comment below and a winner will be randomly selected and announced on this Friday May 17th. (US addresses only)

Note – I have not been compensated for this review. All of the opinions are mine.

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens). (www.simplethrift.wordpress.com)

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A tool for organizing your brain

Welcome to 2012!

I found a new tool last week that I find quite useful for organizing thoughts and ToDo items.

It’s called WorkFlowy and it’s used to “organize your brain.”

As I finalize any yearly goals, I find I have sheets of paper that are so filled with goals broken into tasks and subtasks  that the sheets are more chaos than useful, especially since the ideas don’t hit the page in the order in which they need to be addressed.

What I initially think is subtask 3 becomes task2 and may eventually be subsubtask 14. A lot of crossing out, drawing of arrows showing where to move an item, I can even use colored ink to represent changes. My sheets become an total mess.

I always intend to rewrite the lists to make them legible, but of course I don’t. Goals and tasks get lost, and so do the sheets of paper they are written on.

WorkFlowy eliminates the mess. You start with the top goals and then can indent several times, outdent if you need to, and then even add and remove items as your brain starts making the connections.

I love the ease with being able to organize my goals – if I realize a small item should really be a quarterly goal instead of a daily task, I can easily adjust the listing. No scribbling, no small writing, just a clear list.

And WorkFlowy emails my changes to me each day. I can download my list at any time. There isn’t any limit to the number of bullet points I can have. And when I just want to focus on one goal, I can – I don’t have to stare at the full list all the time or scroll down and down and down to find the point I want to work on. I can drill down as low as I want and easily get back to any level in the list that I want.

Working in WorkFlowy has made me realize that I have way more things I want to do than I have actual time to do, and that’s a great realization. It’s helping me focus more and narrow in on what is important.

I don’t have to delete any of my goals, but I can move them to the bottom of the list. I won’t lose the piece of paper, I won’t have to give up on the goal, I can simply focus on it at a different time.

I’m not a WorkFlowy affiliate, but I am a fan already. They have a blog that gives a lot of insight into the tool. It’s an online tool, nothing to download. Create a username and password and start working. You can even use WorkFlowy from your phone or tablet.

The product has useful Help and fabulous short tutorials that get you being productive in minutes.

You can tag items with when you want to address them, ie. #Monday, #Sep, #soon.

There are numerous tags for the tasks you have including #links, @contacts, #checklists, #issues, #projects, and so on.

Knowing I can print out my list at any time feeds my desire to have paper copies to carry with me.

Your list can be shared with others or kept private. You can add notes; mark items as complete; move items up, down, in, or out.

You can use it for annual goals, shopping lists, working out story ideas, the options are numerous.

If you give WorkFlowy a try, or if you’re already using it, let me know what you think of it. Do you find it useful for anything?

Lisa Jackson is an independent editor, writer, New England region journalist, and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom where she gets to chat with best-selling authors, non-fiction writers, publishers, and other writing professionals on a weekly basis.

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A Tool for Setting & Meeting Goals

I long ago gave up making New Year’s resolutions, but ever since discovering Bylines: The Essential Weekly Planner for Writers, I’ve been setting clear, measurable, and achievable goals every day, week, month and year. Bylines is a Writer’s Desk Calendar with 53 stories for inspiration and encouragement, and some nifty pages to help a writer set clear goals – and meet them.

I discovered the calendar through the Creative Writers Opportunities List back in 2006. When my 200-word story about the writing life was accepted, I not only scored a publication, but I was paid  – five dollars and a complimentary copy of the calendar in which my work appeared. The five dollars was quickly spent, but the calendar has been invaluable.

            The calendar is a spiral bound book with a week-by-week layout. Each week includes a very short essay about the writing life. The 2012 edition includes 53 essays by writers of all ages and stages of development from 25 states plus Ireland and the UK. These pieces run the gamut from funny to poignant. When the challenges of loneliness or rejection or motivation strike, these essays can boost me back to my desk and help me remember that my voice is important.

But Bylines is not just about inspiration. It includes some tools that helped me develop steady work habits as I’ve transitioned to writing full-time with regular gigs and a developing audience. The goals pages are the most critical of these tools. There’s a short preface about how and why to set goals, and then there’s a page for setting a goal for the year. The goal can be anything, from developing a daily writing practice by next December to drafting an entire book.

The first step is to articulate the goal; the next step is to break it down to manageable tasks. Pages for setting month-by-month goals follow with two checklists for each month: one for goals and one for tasks. The goals list is a place to commit to the small steps that will help writers advance to the larger goal, like completing a chapter or writing three poems, or sending out three queries. I’ve found that setting monthly goals has helped me both keep focused and achieve a sense of accomplishment, creating a loop of positive re-enforcement that keeps me writing more and more.

The task list includes items like Set Goals for Month, Pay quarterly estimated taxes, Back up computer files, and – my personal favorite – Clean desktop last work day of month. I confess that I don’t always complete this last item, but at least I’m reminded to. This task list has helped me become more aware of what I need to do to develop my professional, organizational muscles – because as I achieve more success with publication and reach a wider audience, I have a growing need to be able to keep track of the business side of this writing life. Using Bylines has certainly helped me work more consistently, which in turn has helped me achieve new and bigger goals.

Each year, Bylines features a different writer’s desk, a brief biography of that writer, and encouraging quotations. The 2012 calendar features American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. In addition, literary birthdays are noted each day of the year, and there’s a month-by-month list of literary holidays, which I’ve found useful both as prompts for timely essays and for chuckles. (June is National Bathroom Reading Month.) Other extras include pages at the back for tracking submissions, tracking business expenses and miles, space for Conference Notes and contact info. I’ve been using Bylines for several years now, and have discovered that each volume serves as a valuable record of my year’s work.

Bylines is edited by Sylvia Forbes, herself a successful freelance writer out of Missouri. She’s the author of over six hundred magazine articles in the past ten years, and is active in writer’s organizations throughout the mid-west. While family health issues have stymied her intention of publishing Bylines in June, she still makes that her yearly goal. To that end, she’s accepting 200-word stories about the writing life now through March first, for the 2013 edition.

To make it into the book, Sylvia passes on the best advice an editor ever gave her: “Just write the story.” She says it can be quirky, funny, inspiring – anything but an expanded biography of yourself as a writer. In addition to the payment (five dollars, a copy of the book and a discount to purchase more), publication in Bylines offers terrific, year-long exposure to a wide-spread audience of writers. Submission guidelines can be found at
http://www.bylinescalendar.com/guidelines.php
.

My goal for 2012 is to complete a draft of a new novel, tentatively titled Ellen. What’s yours?

Deborah Lee Luskin often writes about Vermont, where she has lived since 1984. She is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio, a Visiting Scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council and the author of the award winning novel, Into The Wilderness. For more information, visit her website at www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Kindle Fire vs. Hard Copy Books – who wins?

Last week I wrote a post about the new Kindle Fire I had gotten. Since then, it turns out my college son has won a Fire in a school auction making us a two Fire family and I’ve got to say, we couldn’t be happier. We are now able to share our electronic library, he at college, me at my office. There is no longer any geographical distance or time constraints on what we read and pass on. 

I’ve continued to read books on my Fire and watch movies. (Cowboys and Aliens, le sigh) and even my husband has gotten into the act and has watched all three of the Dragon Girl European movies. Although he admits that his tablet now feels heavy, he is in agreement that the Fire should be considered a personal entertainment device and not something on which to do work.

It’s small, portable, easy to use, and literally gives me any book at the touch of a screen. What’s not to like, right?

Except that if you followed the conversation under the post, you’d see that actually there are a few things not to like about the Fire (more accurately e-readers in general.)

The first point raised was that a hard copy books feels good in your hands. Those of us who are readers know where this argument is going. There is a sensual quality to holding the story, in being able to quickly flip back a few pages, and in opening a book to the last page you were on without having to press a button first and wait for the system to turn on.

I get it, trust me, I get it. I have a few thousand books in my house (no lie) I’m right up there with you about liking the feel.

But I also know that the more I use an e-reader, the more I get used to reading from it. Holding the book doesn’t mean as much as it used to. The cover I have (Marware Jurni) opens up like a book, it’s a similar sensation. I’m not sure if I’m just getting used to the e-reader or if the feel part of a book, really wasn’t that important after all.

Bottom line is the more I use my Fire, the weaker that old “in my hands” argument becomes.

Another point was that with e-readers, local independent bookstores will most likely go out of business.

That one I can’t argue, it’s true, local small book shops might be a thing of the past, like the local butcher (um, even large bookstores are a thing of the past, Borders, anyone?) Times change, media changes, there are very few out there using 8-track cassettes anymore, we’ve moved on. Sure I’ll mourn the passing of small bookstores but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the “indie” author voices won’t get heard. With the ability to download a book file at a cost of roughly 1/3 that of a hard copy book, chances are I am going to be reading a lot more books than I would normally. That means I’m going to be supporting a lot more authors.

There is a chance, that e-readers will get authors’ books out to many more people than if they were solely found on an independent bookstores shelves. My guess is that e-readers are going to be the best friends of up and coming authors.

Lastly, the point was raised that e-readers contain plastics ,metals, and chemicals and are actually horrible for the environment when disposed. And while that may be a valid point, once purchased, the e-reader could potentially help to lessen the direct impact publishing has on the environment. After all, if you follow the life of a book, someone has to print it, drive the trucks that deliver it, and create the advertising that promotes it. Take the entire Harry Potter series, the trees, the travel, the fuel used to transport. Harry made more than just a literary impact.

Although books are recyclable, as thekalechronicles pointed out, I have yet to ever recycle a book, other than to donate books to Senior Centers or the Goodwill. Those of us who love books rarely send them off to the recycle center. It would just break our hearts in half. As one who reads up to three books a week, this drug of choice of mine can over time end up having a significant impact on the environment – the Fire can certainly help to ease that load.

Look, I’m not a techie. I hate the fact that every time I get a new phone I have to get a newer version (complete with new functionality.) Why can’t I just get what I had? I tend to like things the way they are.

To a degree.

But, when I look at my kids, the writing is clearly on the wall (or in the case, in the e-reader) this is a new generation of kids who are learning to read off of computers. Although they are willing to gobble up everything on a subject (including all relevant books), they have absolutely no interest in buying books at the bookstore. Why waste the time in travel and browsing haphazardly filled shelves when you can do a quick electronic search and immediately find what you need?

“Geesh, get with the times mom.”

 

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

All I want for Christmas is an Amazon gift card. 

Photo credit: AlishaV

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Review of the Kindle Fire – walk with me

I recently got a Kindle Fire.

Can I just say right here and now, that I love it? I’d had a Kindle before but it left me feeling kind of blah, lots of grays and it just didn’t feel good in my hands. Reading the hard copy of a book was still more satisfying. My older Kindle is currently in the boys’ room being used as the download accessory for all High School assigned paperbacks. They don’t care that’s it’s gray, as long as they can read the chapter for the test tomorrow. 

So when I won a Kindle Fire in Jonathan Field’s book launch party for this video, although I was excited, I didn’t have the greatest of expectations. After all, my husband had just gotten one of the $99 HP tablets and I thought, the Fire couldn’t be much better than that, right?

Except that I was wrong and it is.

The Kindle Fire is a nice size and weight to hold, you can actually hold it in one hand (unlike the tablet which would cause your wrist to get whiplash.) It’s sleek and thin. It’s also intuitive to use. The operating instructions were included as a small card in the shipping box. The only reason I even looked at them was to evaluate the design.

The first thing I did was to sync up the Fire with my other Kindle. Bam!, all my books were instantly available to read (including my sons’ school books, but I’m not going to tell them that.)

I decided to take the Fire for a test drive and downloaded The Boy in the Suitcase, a new book that’s getting so much buzz it was on my list of books to pick up next time I went to the book store. A $9.99 download is very nice compared to the $24 jacket price. $14 saved right there. (And yes, I spend hundreds, if not thousands at books stores, very often just passing the book on to friends when I’m done – that part I might actually miss (the passing on of books, not so much paying the cost.))

I’ve finished the book and it was enjoyable. In fact, at times I forgot that I was reading on a Kindle, it felt like I was just reading a book. I even read it in bed at night, no need for a lamp because of the lighting, a nice touch when you husband goes to bed early so that he can do the 5:00 a.m kids’ swim team practice drop-off (2 mornings a week.)

The only downside was when one particular chapter made reference to something in a previous chapter that I had missed, it was a little tough trying to flip back to the page I had wanted to reread. I imagine though, that as I get more used to electronic books, this will get easier.

Yesterday I was at the Doctor’s office and he suggested I read a book on Lyme Disease – Cure Unknown – Inside the Lyme Epidemic  (yup, we have several kids infected with it right now) and while I was still in the waiting room, I got on the Fire and downloaded the book. That evening I started reading it.

He’s right, the book is both well written and heart-breaking. My Fire gave me instant knowledge on the subject – something that as I writer (and mother of sick kids), I can really appreciate.

I’ve downloaded a movie on my Fire, it’s a nice personal size on which to watch (better with headphones.) Certainly not the best device to see the “big screen extravaganzas” but then, that’s why there are movie theaters. For something like The Nightmare Before Christmas it works just fine.

And please, don’t get me started on Angry Birds (damn that little boomerang one, anyway.) If you are a gaming person (I’m not, to tell the truth, it was a short and torrid love affair with those cantankerous birds) I imagine the Fire will be a better device than the small screen in a phone or the larger one on the tablet. It’s more portable, more discrete, something you can pull out when waiting for the kids’ to be done with the swim team practice in the afternoon (2 times a week.) Your very own personal entertainment center.

Don’t get the Fire if you want to use it as a writing device. You’re able to access the net and do things like search or check your email but a tablet or a laptop is still going to rule in the writing department. And if you do get a Fire, consider a protective case a necessity. I got the red zippered Marware ($29.99). As one who dropped and cracked her (un-insured) Droid the first day I got it, I didn’t rest well until my Fire was buckled and zipped inside it’s case. Consider it a necessary added cost to the base price of $199 for the Kindle Fire.

Bottom line? Love the Fire. As much as I adore holding a book in my hands, electronic books are the way of the future. It’s kind of like when we were asked to move from the literal cut and pasting of our news stories from a legal pad to that of a word processor. How many of us continued (for awhile anyway) to write the story in long hand and then re-typed it into the computer just because we didn’t trust the new process or it didn’t feel right?

I’m not sure how many writers still do that these days, just as I’m not sure how many readers are going to continue to read hard copy books just because that’s what they feel comfortable with and, for now anyway, trust more than reading their stories in electronic format.

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About Wendy Thomas 

 Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

And this time, if you need me, I’ll be in my yellow reading chair with my Kindle Fire. 

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