Tag / books

by Becca Spence Dobias

The 2019 Writer’s Reading Challenge

It’s that time of the year when reading challenges are popping up on lots of blogs. There are so many great ones and I especially love the emphasis I’m seeing on underrepresented voices. As someone who’s gotten more serious about my writing in the last year, I’ve realized that this means getting more serious about reading.

As a kid, I’d sometimes go through a book a day– Goosebumps or Babysitter’s Club. In high school, I devoured my English class reading lists, always reading ahead of the class in 1984 or 100 Years  of Solitude.  Though I continued to read after graduation, the demands of college, then grad school, then parenthood slowed my pace waaaay down. Now I’ve been intetionally kicking it back into gear. If you’re a writer who, like me, wants to read to improve their writing, I’ve created this challenge for YOU– I hope it encourages you to push your limits with reading in a way that maximizes your efforts and deepens your involvement in the writing community!

  1. Beta read for another writer
    This will be more than worth the effort when you have a beta reader for your own book. It’s also incredibly helpful to see books in their unpolished form. Plus, won’t it be cool to be on someone’s acknowledgments page?
  2. Craft book
    My favorite is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
  3. Reread a book that inspired you to become a writer
  4. A “bad” book
    Don’t spend a lot of time on this one, but it can be nice to both give your brain a break and remind yourself of things you don’t want to do.
  5. A comparable title to your work in progress
  6. A fiction book with a similar setting
  7. A nonfiction book with a similar setting
  8. Read something out loud
    This is a nice way to really slow down and absorb the language of a book.
  9. A recent bestseller or breakout title in your genre
  10. A classic of your genre
    Something you’re embarassed not to have read yet. Maybe the book everyone says, “Oooh, like ______?” when you tell them about your own work.
  11. Something independently published
  12. The published book of a writer friend
  13. A book that’s been on your to-read list for a long time
    Get rid of the block that’s been stopping you from reading other things!
  14. A book by a woman of color (1)
  15. A book by a woman of color (2)
  16. A book by a woman of color (3)
    Don’t skimp! I want you to read (at least!) three of them!
  17. A book by an LGBTQ author
  18. A book renowned for beautiful language
  19. A book renowned for its social message
  20. Something out in 2019 that you preorder
  21. Something out in 2019 that you buy on publication day
  22. A book recommended by, or named as an influence on, a favorite author

You get an extra point for each review you write and each tweet or email you send to an author! Share your progress with #WritersReading2019 and Have fun!

 

by Becca Spence Dobias

Sneak Peek: Aspirant and the ESCAPE! Anthology

Pre-orders of the Writing Bloc anthology are officially available now! As a treat, I’m offering my readers a sneak peek of my story, “Aspirant.”

Let me know what you think and make sure to reserve your copy before the price goes up January 1!

 

“Sister Trái đất thơm, will you create the Facebook page for our young retreatants?” Sister Yêu asked in her calm Vietnamese accent.

“Of course,” Sister Trái đất thơm said. She had received the name, which meant “Fragrant Earth” when she’d accepted the mindfulness trainings. The other sisters, mostly Vietnamese, had oohed and ahhed over her new name, but the young woman had been slightly disappointed. Her native language was English, and “fragrant” didn’t necessarily have good connotations. “Fragrant Earth” made her think of the landfill down the street from her family home in Victorville, a city of about 120,000 in what felt like the middle of nowhere, Southern California. The other sisters had gotten names that meant things like “Open Heart” and “Pure Soul.” She wasn’t sure why the Elder nuns thought she was some smelly dirt.

Sister Trái đất thơm looked around at the room full of young people, all ages 18-30, who had come for the monastery’s annual young adult retreat, and smiled back at their smiling faces. Even to these people, who had chosen to come to a five-day mindfulness retreat, she knew she was a freak—though she was 22, she was most certainly not one of them. They saw her as something cute and quaint—  like a little mouse— something to be taken care of and to gain wisdom from. Like a little Yoda or something. She knew. It was the same way she had seen the monastics when she’d first arrived.

“Thank you, Sister,” Sister Yêu bowed to her, then turned back to the retreat goers. “In this way, you will be able to remain connected to each other, and, we hope, to your practice. When you use Facebook, you will be able to take a mindful breath and say to yourself, ‘My dear, breathe. You are online.” Sister Trái đất thơm smiled slightly, remembering how lame the mantra had sounded when she’d first heard it.

 

“Will you add me as a friend?” Aaron asked. He was tan and muscular and his scent was oddly familiar and attractive. Though he was from San Diego, he felt very East Coast to Sister Trái đất thơm— no-nonsense, tough but kind, a dry sense of humor.

“I will,” Sister Trái đất thơm said and smiled. She reached a hand up to feel her bald head, then recentered herself in the moment, noticing her feelings. She was attracted to Aaron— she had been all week. She could imagine his arms around her. He was so genuinely interested in what she had to say. She realized she was flirting—  something she hadn’t done since she’d begun the ordination process six months ago by submitting her letter of intent.

The feelings of guilt, of shame, swept over her immediately. “This is how you ended up getting raped,” she heard a small familiar voice in her head say. She was proud that a louder voice—  the one she had been nurturing since she’d come to the monastery said, “It’s just a thought, Julie. Thoughts aren’t facts. You’re thinking.”

Aaron smiled at her. “Awesome!” he said. “I’ll look forward to it.” He paused and laughed. “I mean, I’ll do my best to be in the present moment. But I’ll be happy when you find me!”

Sister Trái đất thơm laughed too. He saw her as a person, not some sage. He could tell she was a regular person who had just decided to come here and do this. Maybe he could imagine her with hair.

by Becca Spence Dobias

ESCAPE! Anthology Cover Reveal and ARC Giveaway

The Writing Bloc short story anthology is almost here! Twenty authors have come together to challenge the norms of indie publishing. We’ve worked together to write, edit, and design a fantastic collection that features science fiction, fantasy, Westerns, and contemporary fiction.

The anthology’s theme is “Escape” and founder Michael Haase says, “As readers, we open books ready to be swept out of our seats and deposited in a world entirely new and exciting. Reading is an escape from our normal lives and thoughts.”

My story is about a woman who has joined a Zen monastery to escape a history of sexual trauma. When she develops a crush on an attendee at the monastery’s young adult retreat, she soon becomes engrossed in social media getting to know him. Was her choice to join the monastery just an attempt at an easy out from her trauma? Is Facebook a distraction from her journey toward healing or an escape from the rigors of monastic life? Will she stay or will she go?

I’m so honored to be published alongside authors like Tahani Nelson, Jason Pomerance, and Patrick Edwards.

Pre-orders will begin on Black Friday and the collection will be released on January 1.

Today you get to see the cover!

If you are a book reviewer or blogger, sign up for one of the 100 free Advanced Reader Copies here!

by Becca Spence Dobias

Writing Complex Children: We Need Better Arcs!

There’s something we might be overlooking in our character development as writers.

We all know about character arcs. Characters need to change over the course of a story. When I received my developmental edit letter for Rock of Ages, my editor conveyed that even the jerk boyfriend in my story needed to have more depth, to show an arc. It could go downward, certainly, but he needed to change. Protagonists certainly have to learn or grow or change in some way. In good writing, all of the characters have arcs and end up at least a little different by the end of the book.

But what about the children?

I’m not talking about children’s or young adult books, obviously. So many of those authors are amazing at creating complex characters and showing these characters grow, learn, develop, and change. I’m talking about books written for adults with adults as the main characters but that  have children as supporting characters. It’s hard enough to think of adult fiction that features kids meaningfully, which is strange because there are a lot of kids around us, but it’s even harder to think of examples of adult fiction with kids who show growth and change over the course of the book.

Children in books should not function only as accessories or a plot device. Children are just as complex, have just as much depth, as adults. More importantly, they change a lot faster. Their development happens simply as a matter of time– it doesn’t depend on external circumstances.

So here are some tips for adding complexity to young characters in an adult-centric book.

Read About Child Development 

The human brain is amazing and the ways we develop early on are absolutely fascinating! How much time passes in your book? How old is the child in your book at the beginning and how old are they at the end? Do some research! Read about child development at those ages. Demonstrate those changing abilities in your writing. Maybe at the beginning of the book a baby doesn’t understand object permanence and cries whenever her mother leaves the room but by the end, she understands she’ll return shortly. Maybe a child who doesn’t grasp the difference between fantasy and reality is starting to comprehend this by the end.

Talk to a Kid

If you’re writing about a child but haven’t spent much time with one their age, see if you know one you can visit or speak to on the phone. Take note of their mannerisms, pronunciations, and sentence structure. 

Let Them Surprise You

Kids in books can do things that would be more out of character for adults because they are changing constantly. Just because a child in a book sleeps with the lights on every night for the first half of the story doesn’t mean they can’t suddenly decide to turn them off. A five year old who is outgoing may become a five and a half year old who is more reserved. I’m not saying to make your young character do whatever you want. They should have a personality and mannerisims and tendencies, but they can diverge from those more easily than you could get away with with an adult character. You can have the adults around them react with surprise, astonishment, or reflection to highlight this difference.

Read Good Kids

Get inspired by books with good young characters. This may mean reading children’s, middle grade, or young adult books, but try to find adult-centric books as well. I recently read Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and was impressed with the character Kayla (or Michaela, depending on who you ask.)

Oskar of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a fantastic character, though this book is a little different since he’s the protagonist. Jonathan Safran Foer does this well in another of his books, Here I Am, too, in which the kids are secondary characters but still complex.

I have a hard time thinking of other good examples, which might show what a gap there is. What have you read with good kid characters?

by Becca Spence Dobias

Book Review: On Homesickness by Jesse Donaldson

I like most books I read, on some level. Even if it isn’t my favorite, or if I didn’t like it enough to read the next one in the series, I can usually find something redeeming in everything I read. More than that, I’d say I like most books I read a lot. Maybe this means I’m good at picking books, or maybe this means I like reading enough that I have a very low threshold for enjoyment when it comes to literature.

Every once in a while, though, I pick up a book that sings to me– that speaks so much to me that it feels like it was written directly to my heart.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Bird by Bird, Everything Is Illuminated, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and now On Homesickness by Jesse Donaldson. I want to hold it to my chest and take deep breaths until it becomes a part of me. It feels like it already is a part of me.

Each page of On Homesickness has the shape, name, and year of formation of one of Kentucky’s 120 counties on the left and a prose poem on the right. The poems detail Donaldson’s nostalgia for his home state from his new home of Oregon. So many of his sentiments give voice to my own feelings about West Virginia in my new home of California. Part of this is because the geography is so similar. We both left Appalachia for the West coast. Part of it is because Donaldson and I are both young married adults with young children. I relate so much to the culture shock Donaldson describes, ache reading the myths and legends he shares about Kentucky because they remind me so much of those from West Virginia, and also felt incredibly invested in his story as it parallels my own.  We have the same cultural references, particularly Wendell Berry. I earmarked almost every other page.

On Homesickness  made me ache in another way– one I didn’t expect. For the first time, I read a book that I so wanted to share with my father. Of course there are lots of things, lots of moments, lots of thoughts I’ve wanted to share with him, but this book…he would have loved it so much. I haven’t felt his loss like this in a while– so fresh. He’s been gone for 19 years now and it hurts that he can’t read it.

Donaldson’s book conveys so many of the feelings and themes I’d like to capture in Rock of Ages so well and I’m so glad I read it while working on the rewrite. This is a book I’ll keep on my bedside and pick up to read a page or two every once in awhile. It has earned its place next to my favorites.

What books feel like they speak directly to you?

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