That was said to me by a friend. Just this second. And when I told him I was using it as the title for this blog post, he warned me that it was an OC reference, which I wasn’t aware of. So I’ll borrow it for now. Excuse me while I quickly scrub this teen drama muck off my skin. brbkthx.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about confidence lately, and how I seem to have none. And how maybe this has been what’s preventing me from getting what I really want because deep down I don’t think I’m good enough for it.

I mean, I applied for a panellist position with Emerging Writers Festival and maybe thought for a split second that I could do it, but deep down, seeing the kinds of actual successful people who have previously panelled, realised that I wasn’t even close to being considered in that league. Did I get it? Hells no.

So, I wonder to myself, why don’t I have any confidence as a person (never mind as a writer, as a female, as a musician, as a cooker of nasi lemak and bakuteh)? Is it because I took something that James Bradley once said out of context (during a writing class, something along the lines of, if you’ve written something that you think is good enough, then it’s definitely not)?  Maybe. Is it because I only choose to see my personal failures, rather than the big picture?

Or maybe it’s because I seem to follow the blogs and Twitter accounts of far too many young and, in my opinion, successful, female writers. I used to tell people that I do this because comparing myself to those who are ahead of me in similar career paths would serve as a good egging on when I’m feeling slack. It does, most of the time. Now before you accuse me of blaming these women for my woes, let me assure you I am most definitely not doing that.

When you look at other people’s successes and feel sad that you’re nowhere near as accomplished, that’s YOUR problem, not anybody else’s.

Quite simply, I can’t go crying to my mummy that nobody will publish my writing because I don’t even have the guts to send my writing to anyone. This is a constant source of shame and one that I didn’t want to share with the blogosphere but hey, I’m baring all. Deal with it. Also, as much as I love my mum, she seems to have this ‘Elena, you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it’ attitude that I just haven’t gelled with yet*, which kind of sort of infuriates me. I know it shouldn’t.

So I’m now comparing myself to people such as Angela Meyer, writer of short stories, former editor of Bookseller+Publisher, a million other awesome things, not to mention author of this country’s top literary blog, Literary Minded;

Estelle Tang, blogger, online editor for Kill Your Darlings host of the 15 Minutes of Fame at the upcoming Emerging Writers Festival, author of 3000 Books blog,  and part of the editorial advisory committee for Paper Radio (a rad new Melbourne-based audio literary journal);

Rachel Hills, freelance journalist for Cleo, New Matilda, and many other magazines, book-writer, author of the blog Musings of an Inappropriate Woman and advice-giver to n00b writers;

Lisa Dempster, author of Neon Pilgrim, publisher of Vignette Press, director of EWF and author of the blog Unwakeable;

Sophie Benjamin, freelance music journalist and photographer and musician, and Resident at State Library Queensland’s The Edge program where she runs a podcast called A Faster Horse, and author of the blog I Am Very Busy and Important.

And of course, to make me feel OLD and unaccomplished, the 16-year-old writer and about-to-be-published author Steph Bowe.

Now, to be constantly looking up to the likes of these ladies and trying to make my own way in the world, in whatever it was I’m actually meant to be doing, constantly comparing myself and feeling like everything I do isn’t enough, is bloody effing exhausting.

I need to stop. The question is how? Every time I get a moment of positive thought, and start believing that I actually CAN do anything if I put my mind to it (err, thanks Mum), I suddenly freak out and realise that I’m a hack writer, with so-so music skills, poor blogging practice and no followthrough on any of my sporadic side-project ideas.

Again, I need to stress, that this is MY problem. I’m not the type to become bitter over other people’s successes. I’m actually really proud that the writing community is made up of women like the ones I’ve mentioned above. The bit that gets me is that I know I should be pushing myself harder, especially when I can see on a daily basis what can happen as a result of hard work, but instead I find myself panicking and hiding in a little dugout. On the plus side, I built that dugout with my bare, unmanicured hands. Impressive, no? No? Mmmm.

Now this blog post is a mega fail. I was hoping that by writing all this stuff down it would help me clear my head, come to some sort of rational, clear, and positive new way of thinking. But I’m at a dead end. So I’m just going to put it out there and hope that anybody who might be reading this, feeling like they’re useless, no-talent bums, can feel just that little better about themselves.

*More on this in an upcoming post.

Anne: the first character I ever found myself in. I wished so damn hard for red hair.

You might think you have an eclectic reading taste. Maybe you do. I don’t know you, I’m just a schmuck who makes small observations and then turns them into general statements about the nature of reading.

But, really, when it comes down to it, you are what you read.

There will always be certain stories, certain struggles and certain characters that you feel drawn to, consciously or subconsciously; willingly or unwillingly.

Sure, reading will help shape who you are, will open you up to experiences you never imagined yourself to have in real life, but I wonder, are you shaping yourself by seeking out these books in the first place? Do you know where you stand when it comes to personal morals because of all the comic books you read as a child/teen/adult, or were you drawn to caped heroes and masked villains because they spoke to something inside you, and confirmed what you already know to be true?

If you literally became what you read, who would you be?

I would be:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

A man

Sometimes female

(Stupidly, not nobly) starving for my art

Abusing others, sometimes as a defence against my own dark insides, sometimes because I’m unapologetically cruel by nature

Confused about my sexuality

Rebelling against whomever I need to, in order to feel important

Eternally despondent about the monochrome drone my life has become, masking this with a depressingly funny black humour that only appeals to others in a similar situation

Constantly struggling between the good and evil parts that make up my character

Always in a class struggle against the world, when really I’m struggling against myself

Full of romanticised ideals about life and love and yet deathly afraid to reach out to achieve these

Impossibly eloquent

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

And that’s just based on the literature I’ve found myself reading over the last few years. Has anybody else found out strange things about themselves through examining their reading choices?

The Long Story Shorts collection by Affirm Press (all two titles so far) were launched at Gleebooks last night, hosted by James Valentine.

Could tell you about comedian Bob Franklin’s hee-larious stand-up bookspeak chat with the audience about his book Under Stones. Could tell you about the ease and banter with which James Valentine and Barry Divola discussed, “in conversation”, the nostalgia of the 1970s, and how no matter what decade we grow up in, the music of our adolescence is always important to us.

Could tell you about the audience finding Bob Franklin h, but then minutes later becoming enraptured, travelling back through time through Barry’s musical nostalgia trip. Or Could tell you that as far as book launches go, this one was by far NOT a snooze (with the aid of a beer or two, of course).

Then again, I could tell you about:

The after-party/dinner that I crashed. Again. This is getting to be a terrible and expensive fabulously excellent habit. Is the term ‘gonzo’ still thrown about these days? Kidding, kidding!

A brief chat with James Valentine, who had some interesting things to say about film reviewing and the influential role PR plays in reviews. Yikes-ful is the word that comes to mind.

Drinking lots of wine, and learning that there is an art to self-deprecation and apparently I haven’t quite mastered it. As per usual, completely lost my filtering system and talked way too much and pretended to know what the hell I was talking about, which is always just great.

Had my glasses lenses cleaned by comedian George McEncroe who in the end could not stand having to look at the smudges and scratches. Sorry George. She also chastised me for not having friends and then in the same breath congratulated me for moving to a new city on my own. Simultaneously feeling ashamed and flattered is confusing and exhausting. We also bitched about boring-town-Brisbane, which is always fun.

Ate nachos. NACHOS.

Aaaaand most importantly got some kick-up-the-arse advice about getting rid of the ‘aspiring’ part of my writer profession. The common themes were:

- Write shit for free. Well, not shit. Write good things.

- Expect and embrace rejection.

- I might just be the only person in the world who thinks I can write.

We hear it over and over again from people. Well, not the last point. That was new. But like I said, it was just kick-up-the-arse time for Ms Pulp. Now please excuse me while I nurse this ever so mild St Paddy’s Day headache and prepare for a torturous run this afternoon.

Apologies for the title. It’s just my fancy way of saying I went to the NSW Writers’ Centre History Festival, Writing The Past, today and am considering an affair with non-fiction. I’ve always loved and been loyal to reading fiction and literature but realised today that some stories are just too interesting to have been made up. Henceforth goes my affair with reading non-fiction/history/biography. Going to attempt to summarise today as succinctly as possible, which, as always, is actually impossible.

Crime and Politics Session

David McKnight and Tom Gilling spoke about writing crime and political history. McKnight shared with us his tactics for obtaining (sometimes illegally) and publishing information about former ASIO members in his book Australia’s Spies and their Secrets. Despite winning the 1994 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for the book, David was disappointed his book didn’t attract any outrage from ASIO. A just complaint.

If I stick to my non-fiction reading goals, I will add Tom Gilling’s forthcoming book to the reading pile. He is writing about the Mount Rennie Outrage, an incident in 1886 where a young woman named Mary Jane Hicks (seriously, how great is that name?) was gang-raped by a group of larrikins (not so great). Nine of the men that were tried were sentenced to death by hanging, but after appeals and public outrage, only four of them were hanged in the end. What’s interesting is that Hicks’ story soon became riddled with inconsistencies, which then fed into the press’s campaign to sully her name, casting her as a disreputable character and prostitute. So we’ve got a female rape victim who, after speaking out about her ordeal, is suddenly portrayed as a sex-crazed trollop. And there are people jumping to the defence of her rapists (although the execution of justice in this instance was so poor, that’s a whole separate issue). Seriously guys, where have we heard this before?

I was hoping Tom would talk about his book Bagman, about Queensland’s police corruption, so was disappointed. One idiotic member of the audience asked a question about omitting/changing certain names of criminals when writing crime history and had to have defamation explained to him. In school they teach us that there’s ‘no such thing as a stupid question’. I wish my grade six teacher Mrs. Crokidas had heard this guy’s question.

Sydney Stories

Con artist Jean McDonald

Anyway. The Sydney Stories session was particularly interesting for its inclusion of Peter Doyle on the panel. Peter shared photographic selections from his published research of police photographs from Sydney in the 1920s. But it was the combination of these photographs with the stories he told about various con-men and con-women that made the session so damn captivating.

There are questions such as, ‘how do you maintain the integrity of the family who was survived by the criminal?’ as well as Peter’s assertion that we’re fascinated with these imprinted characters of the past because of our own secret desire for black sheep members in our own family history. I don’t think this is a hard and fast rule. Then again, I’ve lost count of the amount of Irish-Australians who’ve tried to convince me they’re somehow distantly related to Ned Kelly. In their dreams.

Crooks Like Me is Peter Doyle’s second book of black and white police photographs, following City of Shadows: Police Photographs from 1912-1948. I bought Crooks Like Me because the other was sold out. Having only skimread it so far it wouldn’t be fair to review it just yet. But freaking hell these photos are amazing. Boys as young as sixteen, sentenced to jail for a year for theft; female con artists whose clever cons are explained in enough detail to make me want to try them out, if I had the guts. These aren’t mug shots. The faces vary from forlorn, to defiant, amused, hard, and sorry. But perhaps most frightening are the empty eyes that stare back from the pages in the chapter “Killed, Being Killed”.

One in particular, William Cyril Moxley, has startlingly pale eyes that are are shrewd and calculating. He doesn’t have the gaze of a stupid man. Moxley’s crime CV was long and chilling, including robbery as well as rape and murder. He lived on Arundel Road in Glebe which is so close to where I live that I can’t even tell you how close because of um, internet stalkers, and stuff. There’s something about reading about the history of the city you live in, whether you’ve lived here all your life or have recently made it home, that just makes you look at everything in such a different way.

Historical Fiction

Final session of the day was Historical Fiction with Ashley Hay and James Bradley. Much of the discussion revolved around research: James seemed to be of the notion that too much research can ruin a good historical novel. Fiction writers have an escape route if their book is not historically accurate . But it was also argued that there is an even greater need for accuracy, because you need to show some authority to your reader in order to have them believe the world you’ve created. This was the second time I’d heard James speak about his latest book The Resurrectionist, about the illegal body trade of 1820s London. He’s still as fascinated with cadavers now as he was last time.

But is writing historical fiction really relevant? I know I’m not a huge fan of it but I don’t necessarily believe that it is, as some believe, an escape from ‘real’ fiction, which is supposed to deal with the contemporary. There are always things we can learn about ourselves through the past, whether in a historical or fictional context. And, as Ashley Hay said, our treatment of the past is informed by our experiences of the present.

Days like these make my brain want to explode with all the new ideas that suddenly bloom from being surrounded by so many writers and recorders of history. It’s enjoyable and stressful at the same time, but has cemented in a couple of floating ideas I had of my own despite having never really considered writing about the past in any form.

If I’m going to *force* myself to read non-fiction this year, I think local crime history is going to be a very interesting place to start.

This pic has nothing to do with writing. I just think it's cute.

This is something I’ve been musing over for a while now. A couple of days ago, Jessica Au published a thought-provoking post at the Meanjin blog, Spike, about why we read.

Does your answer to this question inform the question of why you write? For those of us whose love affair with words began with books from our early childhood, writing became a close second: perhaps we wanted to emulate our heroes, or perhaps reading Enid Blyton spurred on our own imaginations, leading to a compulsion to record tales of fantasy and fun.

If someone asked me why I read, today, I would answer that I read to find new worlds within our own. I read to live through characters who are bolder than myself, where girls even more awkward than myself can still manage to be sexy, and where people always express themselves immaculately.

I read because in books there is perfection in imperfection. There are words and phrases that seem to bring a light to life which I am yet to see in reality…then again, I live quite a boring life. I don’t think it’s the same as escapism, because I relate that to genres such as fantasy, which I’m not huge on. Then again, I suppose it is a form of escapism.

Thinking about my reading choices led me to the question, why do I write?

- I write because usually it’s the only way I can make sense of the nonsense inside my head

- I write because essentially, because, even when the process is driving me crazy, it’s the only time I’m really happy.

- I write because I want to be like my favourite writers

- I write because I read books and they make it look so easy, I wonder if I could ever do that. It’s worth the challenge.

- I write because even though nobody else ever wants to read or publish my work, it doesn’t really matter (that is, if I ignore the little insecure, vain voice in my head that whinges every time I’m rejected).

So, it seems the reason I read informs the reason I write. Writing is only one form of storytelling. I watch movies, and read comics, but I’ve never had the same desire to go out and start filming, or to create my own comic series. But when I read it’s as much about the medium as it is about the story. And it’s this medium that I want to communicate in – the only one that seems to work for me.

Do you write? And if so, how influenced are you by what you read? Are you naturally drawn to the types of stories you write yourself, or do you think it was your reading choices that in fact caused you to start writing?

So I’ve been reading Lisa Dempster’s recent post questioning the legitimacy of blogging, which has brought what I think is an important debate to the forefront about writing and the M word.

Lisa pointed out that the ABC’s forthcoming Book Show Blog will not pay its bloggers, despite offering flat rates for its radio reviewers. The suggestion she makes is that this helps devalue blogging even further.

I can understand that the legitimacy of blogging is questionable because blogs are rarely professional. And they don’t want to be. Of course there are a multitude of professional blogs out there, and it’s a fantastic media device and marketing tool for businesses. How do we determine whether or not an organisation can afford to pay its bloggers?

After further discussion over at Ryan Paine’s blog, it became clear that there are two different issues, as Lisa pointed out:

1) Should writers write for free?

2) Should publishers expect writers to write for free?

There’s also a third issue – as the Book Show’s blog project is clearly aimed at emerging writers, is this an issue for young writers or writers in general?

1) Should writers write for free?

In answer to the first question, writing is one of those professions where you have to really want to do it, and money isn’t an issue. But of course everyone needs to pay their rent/mortgage/board. If you don’t,  lucky you. Go stand far away from me. That being said, I think writers should write for free if they’re not established enough. You have to earn it. I learned the violin for 13 years and finished my Grade 8 exams, but up until then, I wouldn’t have asked for payment if I were to play at someone’s wedding, etc. These days, the chances of me performing free are still high, but my opportunities for a paid position have grown. I finished my Grade 8 exam 4 years ago.  Imagine if I did my AMus?

The point is, anyone in a creative field needs to slug it out for a long time. I’m still doing that now. It sucks. But it’s important. I will definitely be applying to write for The Book Show because writers should write for free…to an extent.

2) Should publishers expect writers to write for free?

This is a tricky one. As a journalism student I was bombarded weekly with amazing unpaid writing opportunities from everyone, ranging from local commercial radio stations to NGOs and from dodgy start-up online publications to Quest community newspapers. Now because I had to juggle university with a paying job, I was limited in my choices. But of course people scrambled for these opportunities. Exploitation of desperate uni students trying to fill out their resumes seems to be normal practice these days, and is waved away with the old “cutting down resources/staff” excuse.

I think (and feel free to disagree), that in the case of writing an article for someone, the publisher’s financial situation should determine whether or not you get paid. If I notice a publication (online or otherwise) is offering payment for articles, even if it’s a small amount, I tend to think a little higher of it, without being able to help it. (Not that this would stop me submitting work to an unpaid publication.) As Lisa mentioned in a comment on one of my earlier posts, paid gigs are usually accompanied by a professional editor. Now, if all online writing got a professional editor working through it, surely blogging would become more legitimate? Perhaps the lack of gatekeepers in the blogging world has reduced its legitimacy. If so, then are blogs such as The Book Show’s blog helping blogging become more professional by providing a professional editor and inhouse style guides? (A style guide with which I’m overwhelmingly familiar, thanks to 3 years of ABC tutors at UQ, by the way. I’m just saying…)

I feel very strange writing this because I know that a large portion of the bloggers who read this are book bloggers, and a lot of them are simply blogging for the fun of it, and for their love of reading. But what about the bloggers who blog for other, less noble reasons (I for example, do not hide the fact that I use this blog to gain professional merit as well…although the success of this is debatable). We actively try to present our blogs as legitimate and authoritative. (I’ve cut down my memes, if you hadn’t noticed.)

But I digress.

I guess my final opinion on this question is that publishers should NOT expect writers to write for free. Publishers should try and pay, where they can, but where this is not possible, should approach their unpaid policy status with care, so writers understand that a) this is not the norm and b) they will benefit in some way or another. Writers are sensitive folk.

And to throw a spanner in the works…

The other day James Bradley wrote an article for Meanjin, and also on his own blog, asking “why are all the best bloggers women?” Now call me crazy, and blame it on the fact that I read this only days after reading Lisa’s initial article, but could the the fact that women dominate the blogosphere possibly have anything to do with the fact that blogging is seen as less legitimate writing? Teaching and nursing are two professions that weren’t considered so low as they are now until women began to dominate the workplaces. What do you think? Is this why the legitimacy debate centres specifically around blogging, and not around web writing in general? Or is it simply the perceived lack of a gatekeeper that is normally found in traditional media?

As promised, here is a vlog for your viewing pleasure. It’s quite hilarious watching this, I bump the table a couple of times, and at the beginning you can probably hear me drumming my fingers. Now, I positioned myself so that if you get sick of looking at my face for an extended amount of time you can have a look at the bookshelf behind me. woot.

Also, no I don’t have a cold, my voice is actually that nasal :( And the Virginia Woolf book I forgot to name is To The Lighthouse, which I’ve been wanting to read since I finished Mrs Dalloway. And I got really nervous right at the end. But let’s just laugh that awkwardness off. ha ha …..ha.

EDIT: Oh my goodness I just realised this is my 100th post!!!!! What a fantastic way to mark the occasion! Also, yes, I’m aware that the book titles are backwards. This is Elena being a complete video-making n00b and not caring.

The sensationalist title of this post may be a slight exaggeration. But I think I have lost the mojo. The mojo of writing. I’ve been sitting at my laptop trying to write a guest review for someone, and somehow in the process I managed to watch the season finale of Glee, and seven Tori Amos videos. And now I’m listening to a book podcast (Linus’s Blanket: That’s How I Blog, if you were interested. It’s very entertaining). Just so you know, I rarely listen to podcasts. Usually because I find them distracting. People, this is a dire level of procrastination.

So after exhausting Youtube, I started looking up chords to David Bowie songs and having a crack at them on piano. I can now play half the songs from Hunky Dory (my favourite Bowie album). I was about to grab my violin out for an impromptu solo jam session, and then decided I should write SOMEthing, even if it’s just to tell you all that I’ve lost my writing mojo.

Probably because I decided to take on too many projects at once. So I’ve gone into overload. Besides this guest post, I also have 2 more side projects, plus three books lined up for With Extra Pulp review. And I’m not as fast a reader as I used to be.

Another possible side project that has cropped up is ABC Radio National’s Bookshow Blog, which is recruiting writers for its launch next year. I’m tossing up whether or not I have time to add another unpaid writing gig to my week.

Lisa Dempster blogged recently about the perception of blogging not being ‘real’ writing, compared to print/radio/tv writing and the overwhelming amount of writers willing to provide free content. To be honest I didn’t think anything of the fact that it was unpaid until I read her post. As someone who is yet to be paid for a piece of writing (I just haven’t worked up the guts to move to this next level), it got me thinking, does your writing somehow change if you are paid for it?

Would your writing get better, knowing that someone is actually investing in your work? Or worse: crumbling under the pressure of suddenly having to deliver a top-quality product (because, well, let’s face it: My blog is self-edited, so it’s not exactly top quality)?

ANYWAY back to my lost mojo. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get it back? Suuure turning off the internet is a possibility, but what are the chances of that happening?

So… listening to Tori Amos didn’t work. Playing music just got me even more distracted. I’m considering packing up shop and heading to one of the many quaint cafes along Glebe Point Road to do some cool-cat cafe writing.

(Add a beret, an espresso and a cigarette: Voila! Instant writer.)

Nope. I’m still here. Seriously, if anyone has any tips on how to get my writing mojo back, please share. Have you ever experienced hair-pulling levels of frustration at your writer’s block? Did you work out a way to get through it?

I seem to have gone on an email newsletter subscribing craze. I blame J.T. Oldfield’s incredibly entertaining newsletter, ‘This Week at Bibliofreak’. In the latest edition, Cara from Ooh…Books! wrote a great guest post on the absence of negative reviews in book blogs.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on what it means to write a good review, and Cara articulated almost exactly what my thoughts have been on the lack of negative book reviews in the blogosphere. (For those of you who haven’t read this yet, I’ll quickly summarise).

Negative reviews

Cara suggests that book bloggers deliberately skip reviewing a book they don’t like in order to stunt its growth in the online search environment.

The idea that people would do this astounds and frightens me. To dislike a book so intensely that you want to actively block its presence online? You must really think a lot of your blog if you think that simply refusing to mention a book would have any impact on its overall success. Sure, book blogs are incredibly influential in the global online community but really, unless you were a major book blog with thousands of unique daily visitors, I somehow doubt the effectiveness of such a plan.

Cara also makes an excellent point on the importance of negative reviews on books that have received a lot of hype. While I try (in vain) to avoid these books altogether, I enjoy reading negative reviews better than overwhelmingly glowing ones. Reviews that are critical and don’t simply read as a press release for an author tend to be more honest and, well, to put it bluntly, well-written. This is not a hard and fast rule, just something I’ve observed over time.

What makes a good review

Everyone has their own opinion about this. Our taste in reviews is as varied as our personal reading tastes. I don’t think my personal tastes represent anyone else’s but my own, and having had discussions about this in the blogosphere, this is what I look for:

It must be a well-written review.

Have you written something that you are proud of? Book reviewers obviously love books. We surround ourselves with the greatest writers the world has to offer on a daily basis. So when it comes to discussing what you liked or didn’t like, it’s only fair to yourself and the book being reviewed, that you’ve put some thought into it. I’m not a big fan of reviews that simply cut and paste the blurb, followed by “I liked the part where” and “I didn’t like how”. To me, this just isn’t thoughtful writing. Reviews need to appear to hold a bit of weight behind them and overuse of the first person dilutes this.

Work out your intention and stick to it

Matt from A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook is one blogger whose reviews I enjoy reading. They delve a little in literary criticism but still offer a clear picture of what the book is about, through his own reading experience. Other book reviewers maintain they do it as hobby, and aren’t particularly focused on the ‘writing aspect’, but would rather just talk about how the book made them feel. That’s fine too.

Show, don’t tell

A not-so-recent discussion over at J. Kaye’s Book Blog looked at whether or not it’s appropriate to use a book review formula. I have general rules for myself rather than a strict formula, the main one being ’show don’t tell’. It’s through writing about the book that readers will be aware what you liked/didn’t like. If you comment on how the technical aspects of the writing convey emotion and mood, you’re showing that this is something you value in books. If your review focuses more on the plot, then it will be clear that a compelling plot is important to you. I’m so sure I had this discussion on J. Kaye’s post, but my comments seem to have disappeared into one of those internet black holes. Weird.

Find your voice and keep it

A friend of mine once pointed out that my reviews tend to reflect the style of book I happen to be writing about. My brother found my review of The Secret History by Donna Tartt incredibly boring, mainly because it’s not a book he would ever read in a million years (his loss, right?). Rereading my review, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and contradicted much of what’s been said in this post.

But the more we write, the more our own voices emerge. This is true of creative writing as well as book reviewing. J.T. Oldfield is one book blogger who I think has established a very unique -not to mention hilarious- voice. Angela Meyer of Literary Minded is another whose voice and personality is entertaining and relatable. I must admit this is something I’m still working on. If someone asked me to describe my review ‘voice’ I would probably stare at them dumbly. I do that a lot.

I have much more to say on this topic, it seems a Part Deux is in order. I’ll leave you with a few more bloggers whose voices (and writing talent) keep me coming back for more:

Sam Cooney @ Not Dark Yet

Lorelei @ Lorelei V

Ryan Paine @ Socratic Ignorance Is Bliss

Estelle @ 3000 Books

Phill @ Toothsoup

As I was writing that last list, I’ve started to wonder about why we read comics and graphic novels? Or do you actually prefer books (I know I do). I love reading Maus, and I’m a fan of 100 Bullets, whenever I can get around to buying the next issue (there are quite a few). But for me it’s pure, unapologetic escapism. When you move to a new city and find the idea of having to build new friendships from scratch utterly exhausting – not to mention terrifying – comics and graphic novels offer whole new worlds to absorb yourself in. It’s not the same as reading a book. When I read a book my mind works in overdrive. The books I read, I absolutely adore, but it usually gets me thinking. And sometimes you just don’t want to think. Sometimes you simply want to fly around with grown, caped men in tight, tight clothes.

Don’t get me wrong. I ADORE books. I want to write books and have people read them some day. But graphic novels and comics come closer to a movie experience for me. So much is said within one frame without the use of dialogue. It’s just completely different. And as much as I am an advocator of the idea that a good graphic novel uses its artwork to tell the story, sometimes it’s nice to just sit and look at the groovy drawings. Anyone who has read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz would be quite familiar with the comic book nerd stereotype. (Or, dare I mention, a certain Comic Book Guy from a certain animated series?)

I can understand where the stereotype comes from, being a bit of a loner myself: You get to a point where you begin to think…”who needs friends? Between Jane Eyre and Deadpool, I’ve got all the friends in the world without ever having to leave my room”. Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable but I think that comics are the closest things to having real life friends.

That’s just a little Thought Of The Day.