Tag: Writing

What I’m encountering in a raft of ebooks

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As an author of ebooks, I’ve been lately engaged in an orgy of reading works by my fellow Smashwords writers. Admittedly, many of my selections have veered toward writings that reflect topics in my own novels – hippies, yogis, subway riders, millennials, Buddhists, Greek-Americans, and the struggles of new adults, especially. Still, it feels good to get a sense of what others are up to, and their formatting does give me a better sense of my digital options.

As I do so, I often leave brief reviews as a guide for other readers with similar interests. You have no idea how much these mean to a writer, so let me urge you to do the same whenever possible. As one responded, just knowing that she was heard was warm and welcome affirmation.

Just because many of these books are what the big imprints would deem “not viable for commercial publication” does not mean they lack value.

One of my favorites is a two-part memoir by the daughter of Lebanese immigrants who wound up in Nebraska somewhere around the turn of the 20th century. Her candor and details, however simply told, strengthen my understanding of what I present as Cassia’s ancestry in What’s Left. I dread to imagine what would have happened to the memoir in an attempt to jazz it up for wider sales. We should feel honored being allowed in behind the doors of a particular family history so honestly revealed.

It’s something like visiting artists’ studios or art galleries rather than going to the big museums. The scale’s definitely different.

One thing I’m finding is that I apply a more laid-back standard in reviewing these volumes. Yes, they are cheaper, for one thing, but I also read these more like manuscripts than finally processed books. I’m looking especially for freshness and energy, the edge often absent in the book industry. Remember, the big houses no longer nurture talent in the hopes of reaping a hit five books later. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is where the action is now. Besides, even commercially published works these days aren’t particularly well edited. Alas.

Still, I’m having some common complaints, the pet peeves of an aging copy editor.

“Grey” instead of the American “gray.”

“Towards” rather than the American “toward.”

“That” instead of “who.”

Punctuation errors, especially with single and double quote marks.

Short stories posing as novels. Admittedly, I’m frugal, but these short entries are rarely worth the same as a fully fleshed out book.

To see what I’ve been reading, go to the book reviews at my Jnana Hodson at Smashwords page.

Got any favorite ebooks to recommend?

Entering a photographer’s private world

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Her father’s photographic trove gives Cassia the pieces she eventually assembles into a massive picture puzzle of his world. It spans some big changes in his own life, as well – especially regarding her own family.

In my novel What’s Left, this task also means she has to master some now obsolete technological skills, including reading photographic negatives, where blacks and whites are reversed, moving around in a dusky darkroom, using a photo enlarger, and developing glossy prints in trays of chemical liquids she’s mixed on her own. (My, have those things changed thanks to digital photography!)

Continue reading “Entering a photographer’s private world” →

Kinisi, from Greek for ‘motion’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve long been fascinated by the inner workings of English in very short segments. Typographical errors, for instance, when they seem to release some other possibilities. Aram Saroyan’s Lighght would be a prime example, presented as a poem in its entirety.

We accept the silent “gh” without question in conventional writing, but a second one brings us back to the perplexity we had as children learning some very strange spellings. And then, maybe, it points to the wonder of light itself.

There’s also the question of just how short a poem can be. One word? Two? A single line? Two lines?

Beyond that is the concrete poem, including those where typography itself seems to embody its own beauty, apart from any obvious meaning.

More recently, I’ve become fond of two or three synonyms or antonyms in juxtaposition.

I’ve played with all of these concepts, some of the results now appearing in my Thistle Finch chapbooks and others in my Kinisi series here.

And some of them could simply be prompts for a writing exercise.

Trying to figure out what to call them has always been a challenge. I wound up with Kinisi, from the Greek root for kinetic, when I noticed what attracted me to these fragments was some mysterious innate motion generated by the bits.

Here’s hoping they leap and dance in your imagination, too.

 

Ten things ‘What’s Left’ and ‘Nearly Canaan’ have in common

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Considering that they were drafted 30 years apart, I thought these two novels would have nothing in common.

Boy, was I wrong.

Here are ten overlaps.

~*~

  1. American Midwest. Southern Indiana for Cassia. The Great Plains or somewhere similar for Jaya and Joshua.
  2. Asian spiritual practice. Tibetan Buddhism for Cassia’s father. Hindu-influenced yoga for Jaya.
  3. Relationship and family focus. Five generations for Cassia, including her close cousins known as the Squad. Three same-age couples for Jaya, plus her in-laws and landlords out west.
  4. Livelihood. Family-owned restaurant and real estate for Cassia’s clan. Nonprofit public services for Jaya.
  5. Women in business. Cassia’s whole family, from her great-grandmothers down to herself. Jaya in nonprofits management.
  6. Career uncertainty. Cassia’s cousins have difficult decisions to make about whether to stay with the family business or find other livelihoods. Three of the spouses in Nearly Canaan struggle in their search for suitable employment, while the other three are caught up in their professions.
  7. Far West. As a young adult, Cassia works with clients across the western half of America, while Jaya and Joshua eventually relocate to the Pacific Northwest.
  8. Death and loss. They’re central to both books.
  9. Food. Cassia has all of that Greek heritage. Jaya and Joshua move to a land of orchards and fresh seafood.
  10. Restaurants. Cassia’s family owns a landmark café. Jaya is introduced to Joshua where he’s a flippant waiter.

~*~

Any of this appeal to you?

Chiseling away to release the angel

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The novel that now stands as Nearly Canaan is a much, much different book than its original draft.

The landscape itself is no longer a primary character, for one thing – a Garden of Eden for an Adam and Eve. It still provides a vivid background, all the same.

Changing the protagonist into a slightly older, career-driven woman and the suitor a younger man also greatly shifted the dynamic.

The narrative was still an epic, rambling investigation that eventually spanned across three volumes – Promise, Peel (as in Apple), and St. Helens in the Mix – but the momentum and message got lost along the way.

I needed to look at it the way Michelangelo looked at a big rock. And then start chisling to release the angel.

A clearer understanding of Jaya’s work in nonprofits – and of Schuwa himself – helped me cut the text by half or more, driving it along a stronger plot line.

Unlike rock, fortunately, it’s not just a matter of cut-cut-cut with no additions possible.

So the renamed Joshua – or Schuwa, as she fondly calls him – becomes equally central to the story. In fact, in the two middle sections, he’s now the principal figure.

As I’ve asked, in liberating him from his strict upbringing, has Jaya created a monster?

That alone adds more balance to the tale, countered by the rising pressures in her own stellar career.

Even though what was left was still a big book, I felt an additional touch was needed.

That’s when I returned to an earlier desire for a novel based on Wendy, Pastor Bob’s wife back in Prairie Depot. The distilled essence of that now became a fitting coda for the opus.

By the way, I still think Wendy’s an angel – of the living, breathing sort. No wonder she and Jaya so quickly bonded.

 

I still have mixed feelings about genre and series

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Somewhere along the way, I developed an aversion to “commercial” writing. Maybe it was the “hack” label I encountered, back when I was in college, when I read Samuel Johnson’s dismissal of most of his contemporaries, or maybe just a heightened sensitivity to the low esteem given journalists, which is where I spent my work life. (By the way, I’ll still argue that some reporters are better writers than what I find in many literary circles.)

Have to admit, what I aspired to was critical recognition. Respect. Self-worth.

That’s changed somewhat, especially when I consider so much of what I’ve encountered in that critically acclaimed list over time.

Gee, when it comes to admiration, which would you rather have – adoring readers or a circle of critics and academics?

Continue reading “I still have mixed feelings about genre and series” →