~ Blogging 102 ~

Following on from my Toastmasters speech series – and subsequent blog series, see Blogging 101 – I am back with another post on blogging. As mentioned before, in the beginning, I started following social media guru and writer Kristen Lamb. She advocates having a professional (or at least professional-looking) headshot and using that same image across all your platforms. It helps you to create a cohesive brand. A friend who makes her living as a photographer took my headshot, and I use it for everything to do with social media except for my blog. I felt the homepage was a bit dark at the top and needed colour so I substituted a more colourful headshot in place of my usual.

It’s important to ensure you have linked your headshot to Gravatar, a service providing “globally unique avatars.” If you sign up with the site, upload your headshot, and provide your blog link, when people click on your headshot, they will see the link to your blog and discover you.
In the past, I used to have numerous social media sites, 7 or 8. And maintaining them all was nearly a full-time job. Then in 2020, I met Karen McMillan when I hired her as the publicist for my trilogy. In one of our meetings, she asked, “Just out of curiosity, how much time do you spend on social media?” When I told her she gave me solid advice. She said, “I avoid it mostly. Social media is a time waster! I only have two sites, and that is all you need. My advice is to delete them – and create more time for writing – but save the two you use the most.”
I deleted everything (even my website), leaving only Facebook, my monthly newsletter, and my blog. As my WordPress site now functions as my website, I added an About the Author page for my bio, an Influences page to share what has influenced me as a writer, and Yvette’s Work, which details my published books with links to buy.
The advice most of us hear when building a website or a blog is to place your “calls to action” (subscribe to my blog, buy my book, etc) on the top right-hand corner of the page. But, I preferred my homepage on WordPress with everything on the left, so the calls to action, photos, and so on stream down the left. Make the decisions that best suit your style and brand.

It’s a wise idea before launching to write several posts in advance. It will give you some backup if necessary and peace of mind knowing you are covered for the first few weeks. Even today, I will always have two or three posts on file in case cyclones or global pandemics happen so that I don’t miss a week. When you prepare to post your piece, don’t forget to add “categories” and “tags” (they will be in the design features of your blog publisher’s post templates), describing in a word or two what the post is about. This is basic SEO and will help drive traffic to your site.
Blog titles. There are a few commonly held beliefs about the best titles, which are designed to drive a gazillion readers your way. I have used all of them at some time or another. When I started my blog, the idea was that lengthy titles attract the most attention. Likewise, titles that promise something, like “How to…” are the most clicked, and titles with numbers like 5 Steps to Weightloss, 7 qualities Every Writer Needs. When I started blogging, I wanted to use enticing titles like these but as I went along, I found that the title would always present itself at some stage. I think somewhere in the last decade, between the death of my parents, Covid, and the cyclones, I stopped caring about engineering perfect titles for my posts and started focusing more on content.

I remember how nervous I was pre-launch in 2014, terrified that no one would read my blog and I’d fall flat on my face. My good friend, Robyn Campbell – fellow author and blogger – said, “Write the words, and they will come.” And since then, I’ve come to see she was right. If you are nervous about launching your blog, do not worry. Just write the words and they will come.
Happy Blogging!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” – Brian Clark

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~ A Book Review: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders ~

I have finished reading my fifth novel for 2023, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (in which Four Dead Russians Give us a Master Class on Writing and Life) by George Saunders. A birthday gift from the eldest sister, a person who always puts a lot of thought into her gifts, I looked forward to reading it. From the first lines, I was hooked. An esteemed Man Booker Prize-winning author, George Saunders has been teaching a Russian short story class at Syracuse University since 1997. The idea behind this book is to give us an idea of what he teaches about the short story. While the rest of us probably won’t ever make it into the class, (of the 6-700 applicants each year, they pick 6), we can get an insight into Saunders’ course through A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. It is written in the way of sharing short stories by Russian masters one at a time, then Saunders shows us step-by-step how the story is constructed, what the authors did, and why. We learn through the examples of the greats. What a cool concept.

George Saunders, astutely and with great humour (I guffawed aloud numerous times), proceeds to dissect each story written by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, and Turgenev and to look in depth at how they work. Saunders writes, “The aim of this book is mainly diagnostic: If a story drew us in, kept us reading, made us feel respected, how did it do that?” It ticks an automatic “like” from me because – being a mostly self-taught writer – I’m always hungry for more, seeking new information and learning. However, I am sure A Swim in a Pond in the Rain would provide a captivating insight into the world of fiction for anyone, writer or not.
George Saunders (born in 1958, in Amarillo, Texas) is an American writer. He received a B.S. from the Colorado School of Mines in 1981 and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University in 1988. Married with two children, he wrote his first book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, a collection of dystopian stories published in 1996. More short-story collections followed, however, he is best known for his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. The book became a bestseller and was awarded the Booker Prize in 2017. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a series of essays by Saunders on 19th-century Russian writers, published in 2021. Saunders’ Liberation Day is a collection of short stories he released in 2022.

I think there are some books where you can tell from the first few words that it is the “right fit” for you, and an eagerness is born within. I warmed to the innate optimism immediately in A Swim in a Pond. “There’s a vast underground network for goodness at work in the world,” Saunders writes. “A web of people who’ve put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people.” My sentiments exactly.
There were things I learned about writing through the course of reading this novel. And there were many things I confirmed through reading it. For instance, Saunders echoed my understanding that writing a story doesn’t happen through planning but is created from almost dead words through the alchemy of editing. “The actual process, in my experience, is much more mysterious and beautiful and more of a pain in the ass to discuss truthfully.”
Parul Sehgal of the New York Times, in his piece, George Saunders Conducts a Cheery Class on Fiction’s Possibilities, said, “He offers one of the most accurate and beautiful depictions of what it is like to be inside the mind of the writer that I’ve ever read — that state of heightened alertness, lightning-quick decisions.” Yes. I couldn’t agree more.

It was a master class, as promised. We learned about the need for efficiency, velocity, specificity, and escalation. “That’s all a story is, really: a continual system of escalation,” explains Saunders. “A swath of prose earns its place in the story to the extent that it contributes to our sense that the story is (still) escalating.”
There was a lot to praise. And I loved the idea of listening “to the wisdom of the novel” when editing, which Saunders describes thus, “Every true novelist listens for that suprapersonal wisdom, which explains why great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. That’s what craft is: a way to open ourselves up to the suprapersonal wisdom within us.” Woohoo. What more could we need? A smart author putting into words some of the essences of the mystery that is fiction writing. Bliss.
The only question I have left is, will there be a second Master Class book?
My rating: (A totally rare) Five stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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‘A person can hardly read even a few lines of Tolstoy without feeling her interest in life renewed.’ ~ George Saunders

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~ A Book Review: The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice, by David Calder ~

I have finished reading my fourth novel for 2023, The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice, by David Calder. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this slim novel which I picked up for a dollar at a local book fair, apart from expecting a few dragons. It turned out to be a story about Jackie, a fifteen-year-old female dragonslayer’s apprentice, though written from the point of view of the Dragonslayer. The story is set in medieval times and follows the fortunes of the Dragonslayer as he and his team attend various towns in need of their services. Jackie is not the male apprentice her master had wanted. The Dragonslayer, (who remains unnamed throughout) thinks he must be “stark-staring, raving mad” to take on young Jackie. Naturally, we expect the story will prove that he was right to take a chance on a female apprentice, and with a few adventures along the way, that is what happens.

One of the first things that struck me about this novel was the tone. It was tongue-in-cheek. The Dragonslayer noticed that it took each of the latter about ten minutes to say, in effect, that they had nothing to say. Why don’t they have a meeting with the beast and just bore it to death, he thought. From the get-go, we realize this book is not taking itself seriously, which is fun for the child reader. The enigmatic assistant, Ron, says ‘two words a day’, and his gestures and grunts are interpreted by the Dragonslayer in regular comedic installments. He translates a nod as, “I’ve unpacked the equipment, checked it, sharpened everything, made repairs where necessary, oiled everything, laid it out in order, and locked it up safely.” LOL.
First published by Scholastic New Zealand Ltd, in 1997, with the tagline, “She’s smarter than Xena, funnier than Guinevere, and spunkier than Catherine (a.k.a. Birdy). She’s Jackie, Dragonslayer-in-training, and she’s moving through the land to kick some major tail!” I like that. These days girl power is trending. I suspect that back in the 90s, the idea was new and exciting. Kudos to Calder. The problem was, despite the official backing of a traditional publisher, the book failed to launch, which is a shame because the characters are there and it’s a decent story.

No one can really ever say how another person’s story should be written. Art is art. However, in my opinion, there is not enough structure. I prefer the structure nailed down. The plot arc pertains to Jackie being a female in a “traditionally” male role. She faces sexism throughout, with most folks being surprised by her gender and then dumbfounded when she dispatches the monsters. Toward the end of the book, the Dragonslayer realizes Jackie is a worthy apprentice, and the guild of dragonslayers welcomes Jackie to the guild. We discover she is a princess who had feared the royal family would disapprove of her apprenticeship to the Dragonslayer. The king and queen, who are in attendance, accept her back into the family fold. I feel it would develop that connection and tension for us readers if the fact that Jackie was a runaway princess had been introduced in the beginning. Then by her endeavours, and her adventures, if she had built the courage to triumph, face her parents, and get welcomed into the guild, we could engage with her on a deeper level. But Jackie’s feelings about her parents and her royal heritage do not appear until the last four pages of the book. It could have proved the emotional heart of the story. And, unfortunately, from the point of view of character arcs, Jackie starts smart and sassy and ends up more or less the same way, too, which is a lost writing opportunity.
A great story is about cause and effect. The reader endures the building tension to see if the characters will get through/win the day, know the answers to the story questions, and rise through the arc of their journey. With The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice, the small band accompanies the Dragonslayer traveling from one town to another to defeat various beasts. Surprisingly there is only one dragon. There is a giant kitten (?), a pair of monstrous killer birds, and a woman claiming to be a witch. Jackie gradually proves herself a worthy apprentice. It is a good enough story in itself. But, it could have been so much better if the chapters had been better connected to build the tension necessary to keep us turning pages. When you reach the end of the book, there is not enough emotional payoff. No cause and effect; no payoff.

When I realized the author was a New Zealander, I looked up David Calder to learn more. He is a Kiwi-American author of two novels who cites his influences as F Scott Fitzgerald, Wilbur Smith, and Bernard Cornwell. Calder has a fascinating backstory. He was a soldier during the Vietnam era and had two engineering careers in the US, in automotive and software businesses, before transitioning to full-time writing. These days, Calder divides his time between a small horse farm in the Waitakere Ranges north of Auckland in New Zealand, as well as his base in Long Beach, Southern California. He is working on a follow-up to Redemption Cove, set in southern France, and another Israeli terrorism novel.

My rating: One and a half stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Act I — Get your character up a tree; Act II — throw rocks at him; Act III — get him down again.” ~ Anne R. Allen

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~ Blogging 101 ~

This post is based on a speech I gave recently at my Toastmasters club.
In 2014, I read We Are Not Alone, by Kirsten Lamb, author, and social media expert. WANA was about how to navigate social media for authors. (*Note, I think this book is out of print now, but contact the author.) Kirsten advocated that authors should have blogs. She said that when we have to write an 800-word article a week, it is another form of writing and a discipline, one that helps us develop as authors. Before starting my blog, I read this advice and wondered how it would help. But having spent nearly a decade writing a post a week, I see what she means. When I go back to my earliest posts, the prose doesn’t sound like me, and I can see that writing my weekly posts is helping me develop my “author’s voice.”

Where do you start? You start by choosing a blog publisher. When I started mine in 2014, I was on Blogger. What I did not realize was that Blogger had no facility for “likes”. When there is no facility for “liking” a post, most people will read and move on without doing a thing. That makes it hard for the author to see what sort of traction they’re getting. And, it can be lonely.
Why do we blog? We have something we want to express, communicate, or sell. No matter your reason for blogging, no one wants to speak to an empty room. After a year and a half, I jumped ship to WordPress and had to start again from the ground up. But it was worth it because suddenly, I could get likes on my posts. Yay! You know there are people out there, receiving you and responding to you, which is a nice feeling. The week or two or three when I was unable to post over the last nine years, I missed it. It’s a chill and super fun part of my week.

For me, it’s not about building an empire but creating and maintaining connections with people. Treating readers with respect. The next day after publishing my posts, I like and comment on each reply. I make sure to visit the blog of each person who left a like and respond in kind. You are building a network of friends – an online community – and friendship is never a one-way street.

Where do you start? You start a blog by deciding your niche. Create a name for your blog and then check that no one else is using it. It’s helpful to have a subtitle as this clues visitors into your content. Design your blog appearance and title around that. Try to make your homepage as appealing as possible. Too often, I visit blogs that look dull. Make a blog visit pleasant for your readers, put a little creativity into your home page.

How often should you post? Blog as often as you like. Kristen blogs three times a week. Writing more often can build a blog fast. I find one post a week is ideal for me. Try to put your posts out on the same day each week, and then you can be relied upon by your followers to be consistent.

What else should you do? Join a blogging group. There are lots of them. I belong to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. A blogging group like this will run regular events called blog hops, which you can participate in, and it will help build your connections with other bloggers. It also means that on one day of the month, you don’t have to come up with the idea for that post. It’s a win-win and again is about that online community.

Try to put your best foot forward. With your posts be as professional as possible, check for spelling and grammar, etc. I edit mine endlessly. Put out the best posts you can. And have fun!
What pitfalls should you watch out for? Realize there will be trolls. They are out there and will sometimes visit. I use the same policy I do with nice commenters, I like the troll’s comment but with trolls, I never reply. Treat them with the same respect as anyone else but do not engage. Don’t give them a reason to stay and argue with you.
There will also be pirates who will steal your work and publish it as their own. Make sure you put a little piece at the bottom of your homepage about copyright. (Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited, and so on.) Update it every year to make the year of your copyright claim current and include the copyright symbol. Also, protect yourself by regularly every second post or so linking back to one of your earlier posts within your content. That will filter out a number of the bad guys and help protect your blog’s integrity.
That’s all for now, folks.
Happy Blogging!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.” – Gary Vaynerchuk.

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~ IWSG: Book Envy ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

March 1 question – Have you ever read a line in novel or a clever plot twist that caused you to have author envy?
All the time! My gosh, I couldn’t begin to count how many times that has happened. Isn’t it fairly typical of all writers (and artists) that we compare ourselves unfavourably to those peers we most admire?
In the last few years, I’ve read some stellar novels. The boys and I read Mortal Engines, the first book in the award-winning Mortal Engines quartet, by Philip Reeve, and every night, after reading, we’d have to talk it over. We could not read four pages and go to bed silently. I thought, wow, imagine publishing a book that stirred people that way. The unique dystopian world, the images raised large in our minds, the issues brought to life clamoured to be heard. The boys and I would end up having long existential conversations, in consequence, thinking about pollution, progress, and what we would do if… I felt deep envy of the vastness of the concept Reeve had conjured. It was so fresh and keen, the world-building first class, the story gripping. It was dangerous and scary at times, touching at others, spellbinding – it had it all. And, boy, did I wish I’d thought of the sheer scope of the Mortal Engines world.

Another book that stands out is Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield. This one is mainly because of the lyrical style of storytelling and the truly intriguing central question, that of a drowned girl who, hours later, seemingly comes back to life. How? This perplexing mystery draws us through incredibly detailed depictions of country life revolving around the enigmatic Thames River. Unfortunately, the answer to the mystery lets the whole novel down. Therefore, any feelings I’d had of wishing I’d written the enchantingly detailed body of the book had dissipated by the end.
Then there was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, a tour de force of world-building enough to make any fantasy writer quake with covetousness. From the astonishing opening, I read with my mouth agog. It begins:
When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule
Entry for the first day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

And with those words, one finds oneself ushered into the House, which shares its halls with the tide and the earnest, endearing Piranesi, the only living inhabitant of the House apart from the strange weekly visits from a man he calls the Other. So beguiling, so otherworldly, so clever, and haunting was this novel that I literally “looked forward” to every chance I got to read some more. As with Mortal Engines, I found myself thinking about Piranesi long after each day’s reading. I was absorbed. And the twist was killer. What I envied most was the world-building prowess demonstrated by Clarke. Being a fantasy author, I know how hard it is to build a world out of thin air, and to do so as convincingly as this was awe-inspiring. The world of the House was so real in my mind I wished I could go there. Piranesi won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021 and was chosen as Book of the Year by The Times, Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, and many more. That book is envy-worthy!

That wraps up the books I’ve read recently. But, if we go a bit further back in time (say 50 years, to my childhood), then we reach the pinnacle. Last but certainly not least in the jealousy stakes has to be my all-time favourite books, which most readers of this blog will have heard me bang on about many times before, the Moomin series by Tove Jansson. What I love and admire the most about this series is the charm, the sense of humour, and the child-centered voice with all the guilelessness and transparent innocent joy of a child in springtime. Even reading them as an adult, the humour on every page is subtle, sweet, and life-affirming, the books make me want to weep with happiness. They are the perfect children’s books and deserve their place as revered classics in every library worth it’s salt. Jansson’s masterpiece, the Moomin series, remains my Everest – my hope has long been to one day be a good enough writer to write a series to compare. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but that’s my secret (and now, not so secret) hope.
What about you? Are there any books you wished you’d written?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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To write a story that works, that moves the reader, is difficult, and most of us can’t do it. ~ George Saunders

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~ IWSG: Talking About Book Covers ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

February 1 question – If you are an Indie author, do you make your own covers or purchase them? If you publish trad, how much input do you have about what goes on your cover?
I’ll be interested to read other people’s answers to the second part of this month’s question. That’s something I’ve always been curious about – how much input traditional authors have on their covers. One of the things that put me off traditional publishing houses is the fear they would control my end product too much and that my vision would end up being tailored to suit the prevailing market forces or whatever. The cover is incredibly important. For a great many people, the cover sells the book. What is it they say, a face can launch 1000 ships? For me, the cover is more than the face of the book or a mere money-making device. It is my creative intelligence. My book potentially lives on after I’ve gone. It has to be 100% genuinely mine and I need to have consented to every aspect. That is the way I feel about the cover. Besides all that, I want to create everything about my book cover because it’s super fun! You get to do it as a reward after all the hard slog of writing and editing.
I’m an Indie writer. I work on a cover (with the help of my artist and cover designer) until it “feels right” to me. It may sound like magical whatnot. But, it’s a matter of trusting the “gut instinct” to get a really great book cover. I’ve found that instincts will always be right.

Prior to publishing The Chronicles of Aden Weaver, I needed to create the covers. Being a newbie I didn’t know what I was doing. I cruised about on Fiverr. com, trying to find a cover artist. But, how was one to choose from the wealth of talent available? There were hundreds upon hundreds of artists and designers advertising their material. And everyone offering their work for really low prices? The task was truly boggling. I messaged back and forth with a random selection of cover artists, but the process felt cold and soulless. There was no connection with anyone. I didn’t feel reassured that any of them could deliver what I was envisioning.
Then, I had the idea to ask my nephew, Si, who is a natural-born artist, who I’ve always championed, to do the cover art. He is a busy working father of two children under 7. He said he could produce the artwork only if I was patient. That I could do. About six months later, Si came up with the goods right out of the starting gate. I looked at the image for the first book, The Or’in of Tane, and was instantly transported into another time and place with my character. I don’t know if it’s because Si and I have a family bond there, but it was instant love seeing his artistic representation of my protagonist, Aden Weaver, and the setting. I knew the artwork was perfect, and it felt like a real collaboration.

The next step was to design the covers around Si’s art. I talked with Jane Brown from Hydrangea Group. She was the wife of one of the guys at BookPrint, who printed the books for me. She and I talked colours. I chose blue, red, and green. I wanted the book titles at the top and my name at the bottom. Jane showed me the idea of a coloured background panel for the titles making them stand out and we had it. I adore the covers – although they have their share of detractors, as things must do. Well-meaning friends and family like to tell me what’s wrong with the artwork. And, I tell them, art is subjective, and I think the books are exquisite. I strove for deep shades on the covers. To me, they look like jewels. I put out the most beautiful books I could and I am proud of them. It is a warm feeling to share the credits for the covers with my nephew on the inside covers as well. It is a nice legacy for both of us to leave for the next generations of our family. I literally can’t wait to get to work with Si and Jane on the cover for my next book.
How about you? Do you make your own covers? When you shop for books are you swayed by the book cover?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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Why fetishize the book? None of the other vehicles for narrative bear this intimacy of simultaneously cradling and being cradled by a paperweighted world of still words. ~ By George Prochnik

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~ A Book Review: Nancy Drew, The Secret in the Old Lace, by Carolyn Keene ~

I have finished reading my second novel for 2023, a Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret in the Old Lace, by Carolyn Keene. I have fond memories of reading Nancy Drew mysteries as a young girl and was curious to take a peek back into my past. It is interesting, is it not, to read material that fascinated us when we were children and gain that window to our more innocent, younger selves.

The first part of the mystery is the cold case of a famous Belgian aristocrat, Francois Lefevre, who vanished in the 1700s. A magazine runs a contest where people can write the “solution” and win a prize. Needless to say, our ‘attractive titian-haired girl’ Nancy Drew enters the contest with her story solution. Bess’ mom has asked Nancy and the girls to solve the mystery of Madame Chambray, a friend of hers in Bruges, who has found a fancy cross and wants Nancy’s help finding the owner. Add to this a side plot where the bad guys, having heard about the cross, try to sidetrack Nancy by stealing her story and submitting a copy of it before her entry arrives. Then Nancy gets accused of plagiarism.

*Spoiler alert* (I’m going to tell you what happens).
The intrepid sleuth leaves her father to sort out the accusation of plagiarism, while she jets off to Belgium with her pals. While staying with Madame Chambray, the girls learn of another mystery involving the home. Somewhere on the grounds, the famous Belgian aristocrat who vanished has a hidden treasure. The girls meet the great-grandson of the aristocrat, and they discover the hiding place of his lace cuffs and the fortune, which turns out to be jewelry. Nancy has solved the century-old mystery. Hurrah!

It was a company called the Stratemeyer Syndicate that created the Nancy Drew series. The author’s name, “Carolyn Keene,” was a pseudonym used by many people – both men and women – over the years. But the original writer of the first 23 novels was Mildred Benson (aka: Mildred A. Wirt). Also contributing to Nancy Drew’s catalogue of titles were Walter Karig, Leslie McFarlane, James Duncan Lawrence, Nancy Axelrod, Priscilla Doll, Charles Strong, Alma Sasse, Wilhelmina Rankin, George Waller Jr., and Margaret Scherf. Notably, Harriet Stratemeyer, the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, also wrote a number of novels.

Nancy Drew still has fans all around the world. However, the stories don’t stand up too well to modern scrutiny. Casual sexism and outdated attitudes rankle. In 1959, a concerted effort was made by the publishers to rewrite the earlier books, removing racial stereotyping and attempting to update the language. But 1959 was a long time ago, and there is still a lot left to raise an eyebrow. Nancy’s boyfriend Ned is mentioned multiple times as a potential hero to rescue the girls if needed. Nancy says at one point that she would not be able to stop the bad guy herself but would need a man to do it. Also, the non-P.C. element of constantly mentioning Bess’ weight would not fly these days, and we are told: “calories are bad.” Nekminit, George grabs a kid and shakes them. The P.C. police would have a field day!
Reading a book like this is an invitation to consider how much things have changed in our modern era. Nancy Drew is the sort of light reading that reminds us of simpler times. The child reader I was fifty years ago did not think to question stereotypes or gender bias. I read for the love of reading alone. That’s a lovely state to remember. These classic stories are a bit of naive fun. Having said that, I doubt I’d bother reading another Nancy Drew novel anytime soon. There is insufficient specificity, zero character development, no depth, and no real challenge to the mystery. Perhaps some books are best left to our fond childhood memories.
My rating: One star

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read.” Elliot Page

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~ A Book Review: The Grimm Conclusion, by Adam Gidwitz ~

In 2020, I challenged myself to get back into reading. That year I set the bar high by completing twelve novels. A big step up from 0. Then I went further by reading a total of eighteen books in 2021. But, somehow, last year, I fell back to thirteen. As a person who sets high standards for herself, this came as quite a blow. A fellow blogger said she had read 166 books and that the standard number read by most Americans is thirteen or fourteen. The goal for this Kiwi in 2023 is to read more than thirteen! The challenge is on! And I’m proud to say I have already finished reading my first novel for 2023, The Grimm Conclusion, A Tale Dark & Grimm #3 by Adam Gidwitz.

I bought this book while cruising around the secondhand bookstores at Christmas. I thought anything to do with the Brothers Grimm would be interesting. Boy, it did not disappoint. The Grimm Conclusion is the final book in Gidwitz’s acclaimed series, A Tale Dark & Grimm, preceded by A Tale Dark and Grimm and In a Glass Grimmly. Gidwitz did the brilliant thing of retelling the famous Grimm fairytales with a stroke of genius, adhering more closely to their original gruesome forms. Blood, gore, and death abound. So horrifying are these tales that the Middle-Grade reading age is sometimes questioned. Are these children’s stories?
But, I was entertained from the first minute of reading because I have read a number of the original fairytales. I remember vividly reading an early version of Cinderella. There was a scene where the ugly sisters were so desperate to fit their feet into the glass slipper they cut off their toes and stuffed their feet into the shoe, blood dripping everywhere. I could not believe a modern author would have the audacity to retell these stories. And let’s face it, that’s where the richness, the weight, and the true meaning of the stories lie.

As an adult reader, the opening line amused me. “Once upon a time, fairy tales were grim.” Surprise after surprise followed. When one considers the 8 -12-year-olds reading this book. Raised on the diluted fodder of today, I imagine the child reader would immediately devour the book whole. The narrator is hilarious in a dark, daring, dangerous way. On the first page, he talks directly to the reader – which drags you in, like being sucked into Jumanji (you can’t resist). He wants to tell us the story of Ashputtle. “‘Cinderella’ is the name of the cute version of the story, the one that makes little girls want to dress up like pretty princesses. That story makes me want to hit myself in the head with a sledgehammer, also.”

We then shift perspective and hear the tale of twins Joringel and Jorinda. The pair are conceived magically by infertile parents from the blood of their mother after cutting her finger and making a wish. Joringel and Jorinda grow up, but where we would expect the twins would have the best childhood ever with a family made whole at last, they become afflicted in every way. Straight away, their father is so happy he dies the night they are born. Their neglectful mother remarries, giving them an evil stepfather. The cruelty shown to the twins by their parents is disturbing. And the twins, rather than growing into wonderful human beings, become twisted people.
Our gleefully unapologetic narrator leads us through the world of Grimm-inspired fairy tales, like The Juniper Tree, Cinderella, and Rumpelstiltskin telling us their story. Our emotionally crippled protagonists proceed to make terrible mistakes and then try to make reparation for them. Somewhere along the way, the author brings the characters to the classroom where the narrator (author/teacher?) is reading this story to his students. Things get very confusing. Yet, always, the story has a pulsing heart of truth that is its salvation. Gidwitz deals with the fall-out of abuse in a way that we never feel preached to. Kudos to the author for an ambitious project.

American author, Adam Gidwitz, was a teacher for eight years before deciding to write, which (according to his bio) ‘means he writes a couple of hours a day and lies on his couch staring at the ceiling the rest of the time.’ Since producing the first book in the Grimm series in 2010, Gidwitz hit the New York Times Bestseller list. The idea was unique and well-written. It was fresh, different, and shocking. I admired the author’s willingness to break the 4th wall, too. Always a risky move.
I think where it fell short for me was when the story shifted from the realm of a fictional story being told to students to the protagonist characters somehow crossing into the ‘real world,’ meeting the narrator, and so on. Whoa, it gave me vertigo. It was hard to keep clear on what was happening. However, kudos to Gidwitz that he kept me reading despite this setback.
The Grimm Conclusion bravely tackles life, death, and the intense emotions in between. It’s an impressive undertaking.
My rating: Three stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Because, you see, every triumph begins with failure.”—The Grimm Conclusion

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~ IWSG: Your Word for 2023? ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

January 4 question – Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year? For instance, in 2021 my word of the year was Finish. I was determined to finish my first draft by the end of the year. In 2022, my word of the year was Ease. I want to get my process, systems, finances, and routines where life flows with ease and less chaos. What is your word for 2023?
My sister and I had already decided this week that our word for 2023 would be synchronicity. I finished writing the rough draft for my next book at the beginning of last year and started working on editing it. Whereas in the past, I have poured decades of my life into editing my stories, there was a decided impulse this time to make things simpler. So halfway through 2022, I formed a writing group, The Fabulatores, and began editing my book through these sessions with other writers. I am nearly halfway through polishing the manuscript this way. We took a hiatus before Christmas and re-adjourn on January 20. I intend to complete running through the material with The Fabulatores this year and then turn it over to the professional proofreader and editor for the polishing steps.

Am I hopeful to publish before Christmas? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But the difference now is I’m not willing to wreck myself. The biggest lesson I learned last time was that nearly all my ills related to the deadline I had set for publication. The moral of the self-publishing story is do not set unrealistic deadlines. Publishing a book takes waaaaaay longer than you think it will. Therefore, knowing that up front this time, I won’t make the publication deadline on a date set by wishful thinking. Trying to meet the date I had slated for the book release party nearly killed me in 2020 and made everyone around me miserable. My youngest son begged me not to write and publish another book because he didn’t want to go through it again. I felt sorry for my family, friends, and everyone who had to deal with me. I made my apologies and resolved that I would never self-publish another book, at least not in that working-around-the-clock way ever again.

The quandary was how to do it differently?
My general feeling about how the word synchronicity applies to my fiction writing in 2023 is this. From now on, I will try not to push my work to publishable standards in a vanishing amount of time but to allow for the production to happen more naturally. Not to run around like a headless chicken the whole time but to manage running everything else in my life calmly. It’s about relaxed, organic, sustained effort on the goal while maintaining an attitude of humility and patience. I want to allow time and grace for the synchronicity to happen. I’m hoping that if I keep the Ace up my sleeve of a flexible publication date, I can produce my next book without poisoning the goodwill of everyone else in the family! That’s the hope. Wish me luck!
How about you? What is your word for 2023?
Happy New Year, everyone!

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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A great success is the cumulative effect of many small opportunities seized and wisely used. ~ Lord Wakefield

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~ New Year’s Resolutions – Yay or Nay? ~

Do you write New Year’s resolutions? I used to back in the day. Then, I’d fret all year long because that list would stare me in the face with a baleful eye, reminding me I hadn’t followed through on anything. Then, I’d get all resentful, and it went downhill from there. The definition of the word resolution according to my handy pocket Oxford is this, Resolving; Great determination; Formal statement of a committee’s opinion. Well, my committee quit on the whole thing. I stopped writing resolutions in my twenties.
But naturally, being a writer, I couldn’t just go cold turkey. I had to write something. So, my sister and I came up with a reasonable alternative.

We started writing personal lists of “intentions” for the New Year. It has a much nicer ring to it and so does its definition. Consulting my Oxford, Intention means, With concentrated intention, What one intends to do. Sans the formality and sans the committee, writing intentions felt less intimidating and more doable. And likewise, the flavour of the items on the said list changed up a bit also. My New Year’s resolutions used to be grand and overwhelming like I will find a publisher this year. I will meet my soulmate, and I will travel overseas.
In contrast, I found myself writing intentions that were far more friendly and more doable like I intend to start doing a second daily meditation; slow down; do less; wear dresses more often, and so on.

They say that when goal-setting, you should set out the short-term, achievable steps needed to attain those big goals. If the steps are too large, or too far out of reach, people will typically never start. That might be true, but these days, I far prefer writing out intentions which give me a warm glow at the time of writing and also in the doing, and I leave my big life goals for noting in a separate notebook, no deadline, no time frame. I’m a firm believer in taking the pressure off myself where possible.
According to the College for Adult Learning, under HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT, they list 10 steps for effective goal setting:

1. Believe in the process
2. Write it down
3. Set specific goals
4. Set measurable goals
5. Set attainable goals
6. Set realistic goals
7. Set timely goals
8. Remain accountable
9. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
10. Continuously assess your progress

Each year around this time, I start to think about my list. It formulates slowly. I try to frame every thought with kindness towards myself and others. We writers tend to be fans of physical notebooks. I have at least a dozen. My usual tradition during the day on the 31st is to take a fresh page in my Intentions notebook and bling it up with stickers, glitter, and dodads. You can add emojis to a page on your phone, but where’s the fun in that?

Then, I ponder my intentions more closely, and I write them out with colour pens, adding flourishes, doodles, and love hearts! See, not so grown up after all. But it’s so much fun. And it gives me a feeling for where I’m heading and what I’m aligning myself with during the year ahead. It’s like a compass or a touchstone that I can come back to again and again for guidance. And unlike my phone, my notebook never gets lost, stolen, or runs out of charge. I love it and can’t wait to get started on my list for 2023.
What about you? Do you set resolutions? Happy New Year!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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Don’t look back, you’re not going that way. ~ Mary Englebreit

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