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starting to read real books again to improve my kpop rpf writing skills? is it ever that serious?

yeah. the answer is yes it really is that serious. so serious that, instead of setting only writing goals for myself in preparation for 2026, i'm adding reading goals with it too!

#sol blogs #writing #writers block #fanfiction #fanfiction culture #reading to write

Writers: do you use your local library?

All the time!

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

Other / I don’t have a local library

See results / I don’t write

Voting ended onJun 2, 2025

#writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers #writing polls #poll blog #pollblr #writer polls #writing community #writing queue #tumblr polls #books and libraries #libraries #reading #reading to write

The Right Book at the Right Time

The other day, I saw a Tumblr post about how difficult it can be to read even the most book if the timing isn’t right. Sometimes you need something familiar and comforting, and sometimes you need something new and a bit challenging, and there’s no hard-and-fast rule for when either of those things might occur.

It really made me think about the right time to read a book, and about the books I’ve read so far this year that I’ve had on my reading list for ages. If I haven’t “clicked” with a book (sometimes because of constraints on my time, and sometimes because of my mood) in the past, I’ve crossed it off my reading list entirely.

That’s what happened with “No Place for a Lady” by Gill Paul, because I picked it up just before I moved house, and the copy I had was a paperback borrowed from my local library. I read the first thirty-odd pages, and I was really enjoying it, but I was trying to pack my entire life into one small suitcase and a single cardboard box, and that’s quite the task. I returned it to the library, and haven’t picked it back up. It feels odd to me, because I’ve since read pretty much everything else that Gill Paul has written (I just adore her books about the Romanovs!), but the time just hasn’t felt right for “No Place for a Lady”. I don’t think I’d enjoy it if I picked it up now, even though I often pick up her other books, and have given copies of two of them to my friend as a birthday present.

That said, I know it will be “the right time” for that book - and others - at some point. I definitely haven’t given up on it.

If the timing isn’t the best, I really struggle to enjoy books even if I want to love them. A good case in point is “Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi, which I first bought in my second year, when it came out in paperback, but I was Far Too Depressed to read much of anything at the time. Even though I was really excited by the concept, and wanted to read more fantasy than I had been doing, I just couldn’t force myself to concentrate on anything for long enough to get immersed in a book. Trying to read it then just frustrated me, and it got sent to the charity shop as well. Last year, I bought myself the eBook and audiobook, and earlier this month I read the whole thing in less than a week. It’s absolutely fabulous, and so exciting, and I’m so glad I bought another copy, because it’s such a good book (and definitely one I’ll be re-reading, no matter how pressed I am for time).

I’m currently reading “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey, and hate having to put it down to do Things Which Are Not Reading. I first bought a copy of it years ago, when I was still at Sixth Form, tried to read it several times, never getting past the first hundred pages, and eventually it was time for me to pack up my bedroom and leave for university, so it got sent to the charity shop, and I crossed it off my reading list. Cut to my room at university just a few months into my first semester, and I was craving a crumb of Carey... so I bought another copy, and have watched it languish in the corner of every room I’ve had since then... until now. It’s taken me five (or maybe six) years for me to “click” with it.

Hopefully I’ll find the “right time” for the rest of the books on my reading list quite soon. It’s frustrating to feel like my brain just won’t get into gear. Still, when I do feel like that, I have plenty of books (many of them digital, so they’re all in my pocket at once) to try to tempt myself out of the Cave of Potato-Brain, and most of my favourite books are downloaded to my phone, anyway.

(Note: please buy official copies of eBooks and audiobooks. Book piracy is seriously harmful to the whole publishing industry, and even if you don’t want to support a particular author but still want to read their work, pirating a pdf is not the answer. Buy a second-hand paperback from your local charity shop if you can, or look for one online. Alternatively, look in your local library. Don’t download books illegally. Just... don’t do that. Please.)

The other day I was in the mood for something “light and a little bit silly” (both very excellent things for a book to be), so I listened to “Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants” by Louise Rennison (the audiobook is read by the author), which is spectacularly funny. It was distinctly not the right time for me to work silently on my university reading. I read a lot of “Georgia Nicolson” when I was at secondary school, and was much more diligent and industrious (I had more energy then. Don’t know where I got it from or how to get it back. Please return to etc etc reward offered if found etc.) with my studies, so I thought having one of the audiobooks in the background might kick my brain into a decent gear...

...It didn’t, because I was laughing too hard, but it still improved my mood no end, so that I was able to work properly afterwards.

Sometimes you need something familiar and comforting, and sometimes you need something new and a bit challenging, and there’s no hard-and-fast rule for when either of those things might occur. It definitely wasn’t the right time for me to read the articles I had to read for university the other day, but I managed to trick my brain into working anyway by listening to an audiobook which was right.

Still, if your brain is a little bit smarter than mine (the bar’s on the floor, let’s face it) and you can’t trick yourself into thinking it’s the “right time” for a book you want or need to read, don’t worry. (Easier said than done, I know. Try not to worry.) It will be “the right time” for that book - and others - at some point. You don’t have to give up on it.

#writeblr #blog #bookblr #reading #book recommendations #tomi adeyemi #children of blood and bone #brain hack #student life #louise rennison #gill paul #georgia nicolson #jacqueline carey #kushiel's dart #reading list #writer's life #reading to write

Why Reading makes you Smart

Does Reading make you Smart?

Humans are unique. Though we have an innate ability to speak, reading and writing are acquired skills. The brain needs training for this. After watching Taarey Zameen par, every parent wanted to change the narrative. Who needs education when you can support the child’s creativity? Right? But why not have everything? Why is there a fight between science and arts? Isn’t…

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#reading to write

8 Creative Writing Tips from Famous Authors and How to Incorporate Them Into Your Own Work

Fed up with creative writing tips that are punchlines and platitudes rather than useful advice? Here are tips for writers that you can actually use. Source: 8 Creative Writing Tips from Famous Authors and How to Incorporate Them Into Your Own Work

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#literature #literature as model text #reader as writer #Reading #reading to write #writing tips

“I don’t know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it’s always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there.” Koren Zailckas

Over the holidays flying between Hawaii and California, I read books by two of my favorite authors, Dean Koontz and Anne Tyler. Both Ashley Bell and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant spent a lot of time inside the heads of their major characters. I don’t know if the authors were performing memoiric neurosurgery, but they must have drawn their characters from someone they each knew well because I felt like all the major characters shared from their innermost selves.

Novice novelists make the cardinal mistake of telling their stories chronologically. I have done this in both my novels, which is one reason they are not ready for your eyes yet. These two authors leaned the opposite direction, and did as much to confuse the reader as possible. I was drawn to the characters, but not so strongly that I could say they were the reason I kept reading.

I don’t know what inspired either of these books, or whether they were somewhat autobiographical, but I aspire to write like they do. I want the same attention to detail in my descriptions. I want to use the same kind of precise vocabulary that allows them to shine a spotlight from their minds into mine. More than that, I want to alter my overall story structure from chronological to keep the reader wondering what happened, picking up a detail here and there to tie the plot together and answers questions budding in the reader’s brain as he or she reads from beginning to end.

As a kid, I grew up on a diet of mind candy fiction. I read Trixie Belden mysteries in bed until my neck ached. I finished one only to start another lying in wait on my night stand. If I tired of reading, or simply wanted to know who did it, I would skip to the last pages to find answers. As I read Koontz and Tyler, I couldn’t use my skipping strategy. Both Koontz and Tyler bury their answers to your probable questions in the obscure corners of the pages. When you get there, you say, “Aha, that’s why she did that!”

In Anne Tyler’s book, the reader meets a dysfunctional family raised by a single mother, Pearl. From the perspective of each character in the family the story plays out, starting and ending with Pearl’s death. Sadly at the end, the random questions lying loosely in my brain as I read the book did not tie themselves into hundreds of beautiful bows. I began to understand what I never expected to learn. Beck, the father who deserted his family when the children were young, doesn’t really give a satisfying answer to his whole family after his wife died about why he left them at the beginning of the book. However, after the funeral, the eldest son, who needed most to understand himself, had some private time with his father. As a reader, I could see that the son turned a corner in his life and felt validated. It helped me understand why some men need to leave home even though they justify doing so with inadequate excuses. Beck’s children turned out in a way that society would approve, acceptably successful, but the underneath their hearts and souls were frazzled rather than knit all the way through. Yet, neither Beck nor his wife, Pearl, were bad people, in spite of their sometimes horrendous behaviors. Pearl never quit loving Beck, nor did he quit loving her. My own conclusion is that it is almost impossible to quit loving someone you are meant to love no matter how much hurt has passed through your heart on their account.

Koontz knit his way randomly through the future, back to the past, from one location to another, and in and out of two worlds, both very real, without dropping a stitch. Again, although the book kept me turning electronic pages throughout the five-hour flight without nodding off, when I reached the final pages, I wasn’t 80% full. The writing style of today, and maybe forever is that once you hit the climax, you’d better get off your high horse, and park it quickly before it takes you in another direction. This author did a great job of weaving in the minor characters, not wasting any time or wordiness on meaningless, one appearance characters. The characters confused me at times because some of them appeared in both worlds by different names, but their basic natures remained in tact.

Both books kept me highly engaged, and I will go back and study them more carefully to learn how to improve my writing. Thank you Dean and Anne.

Book Review: Ashley Bell & Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant "I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia.

#analysis for better writing #Anne Tyler #Book Review #Dean Koontz #reading to write

Every single time you write, you are improving as a writer. Even if the writing did not go well that day, you are improving as a writer. And every single time you read, you are improving as a writer - even if what you are reading is crap.

JM Tohline

#Writing #jm Tohline #onwards #upwards #reading to write