Jennifer M. Baldwin

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Reading Challenge (Day 24)

August 29, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I’m not the type of person who only reads one book at a time. I usually have at least one fiction book going and one non-fiction. But these days, it’s getting out of hand.

Currently I’m reading Unfinished Tales by Tolkien, Kothar and the Magic Sword, a collection of Clark Ashton Smith stories, the first Brother Cadfael mystery, and Heart of Stone by Ben Galley. I’m also supposed to be reading the Lais of Marie de France. That’s just the fiction.

Non-fiction includes 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write and the Freelancer’s Survival Guide, and I just picked up Learning by Heart by Jan Stewart and Corita Kent, and David Morrell’s The Successful Novelist. I am also kinda, sorta reading Middle-Earth and the Return of the Common Good, and Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay.

Is this too much?

I kinda, sorta think this is too much. The fiction is suffering because I can’t get fully immersed in any of these books. I’m bopping around too much. I know I need to commit and just read ONE all the way through, but it’s been hard. My attention span is garbage.

The non-fiction is different because it’s not so much about immersion as it is about information. I can flit from topic to topic when it comes to information and not lose the thread or the thesis of each book.

But for the fiction, I feel like I need to pick one book and read it all the way through. Trouble is, I’m not sure which one to pick first. I’m afraid if I commit to any one in particular, I’ll forget what was happening in the others and have to start them over.

The reason I want to commit to one fiction book at a time is because I’m worried that my garbage attention span is only going to get worse if I don’t act now. I need to put in the effort to get my brain to be more focused; I need to regain the skill of sitting with a single work of literature and reading it straight through. I’m not against having multiple books going at a time, but I also think it’s good practice to stay with one book without detours. Something tells me this is an important skill and one I need to cultivate again.

Tuesday Morning Poem

August 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

That watery squirt

from the mustard bottle

is the saddest yellow.

Weak and dirty-looking,

like day-old dishwater,

it doesn’t even have the

prickly tang of real

mustard.

 

Yellow must be bold or

else it risks disappearing

into the plate.

 

Not like the yellow of

sunflowers or marigolds,

or even the pale yellow

of that mustard stain

on my shirt, which

may be sad, but it

speaks to happier picnics

and sustenance

and glorious afternoons

under the sun.

Reading Challenge (Day 14)

August 19, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I am reading a lot of books all at once. I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad thing. Here are the books I’m reading currently:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl

Kothar of the Magic Sword! by Gardner F. Fox (yes, the exclamation point is part of the title)

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton

Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay by Andrew Horton (this is a re-read; read this one in college many eons ago)

Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien

Heart of Stone by Ben Galley (I figured I needed to read more current fantasy from independent authors, and this one looked good)

…

And now I’m thinking about picking up another book, The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg, as part of my research on portal fantasies that use role-playing games as the portal into another world. Also, I want to start reading Oathbringer and get back into Stormlight Archives.

Is this too much? Why am I reading so many different things at once? Is my inability to focus on one book at a time a symptom of my internet-brain, where I can’t get immersed in one text for an extended period of time? Is this a problem, or should I just go with it and not worry?

The Bamboo Curtain

August 18, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Today I finished another chapter in Avalon Summer. It’s called “The Clay Mines.”

Not sure about it yet. The novella itself is based a lot on my memories from childhood, and sometimes I’m just writing things as I remember them, not really thinking about plot or structure or conflict or tension or anything, just seeing everything in my mind’s eye and transcribing it on the page. The ending of “The Clay Mines” was like that. I was just remembering things and putting them in there, hoping that somehow my subconscious was making connections.

When I go back and reread my words tomorrow, maybe I’ll see things that don’t fit and I’ll cut, or maybe I’ll see a place to add more, but sometimes it’s hard to judge. Everything is hard to judge when it’s your own work. There’s the version in your head and the version on the page — and they don’t match up — but it’s hard to know if what you put on the page is trash, or if it’s just that artists can’t judge their own work.

I think it’s probably better — as the artist — not to judge at all. Just put it all out there and let the readers decide.  This is where enjoying the process — the crafting of the story — is more important than the finished product. Whether the “Clay Mines” chapter works or not is/should be an after-thought. I had fun writing it today. I had fun remembering and trying to picture everything clearly, and to my delight, I remembered a detail about my grandparents’ basement that I hadn’t thought of in years.

That memory alone was worth all the time I spent writing the chapter. Suddenly, with the memory of that detail, an entire vault of other memories opened up and came back to me. That experience is part of the reason I’m writing this book in the first place. I want to remember those forgotten details of the past and put them into some kind of coherent narrative, to lift them out of memory and bring them to the present. Today, I did that.

Music = Flow

August 16, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been writing a lot of words this week — including finishing Gates to Illvelion — and I’ve been listening to a lot more music lately. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Music has always been — and continues to be — a major source of inspiration for my writing.

When I don’t listen to enough music, my writing well runs dry. When I’m saturated in good music, then my cup overflows. So simple, but sometimes I forget it.

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