Simi > Recent Status Updates

Finally getting to this book!

A lot of world building happening! Almost glad I'm reading it instead of listening to the audiobook. Almost.

Dear lord this book needed so much more editing!

Ahmed calls out the trope she's using, so I'll excuse her for it. A pretty compelling read and I'm surprised there's still a quarter left to read.

This last section was a tiny bit repetitive, but good to see the same point being addressed from different angles. Repetition is also how we build any muscle, and one of the first lessons was that this principle also applies to critical thinking, so I can appreciate that it's purposeful.

This book is filling me with anger and making me feel some kind of way!

Completely forgot this was on my TBR from 2019. A librarian recommended it and I'm finally getting around to reading it. So far, interesting!

I'm not really getting into it yet... high probability this will end up a DNF

1. Publishing isn't the thing that will give you satisfaction. Consider the journey to publication "enough".
2. You have to be "enough" before you do the big things/get the reward/etc., because those things will not make you feel any more enough afterwards.
3. Publication can be a painful process.

A little bit of that irreverence from earlier in the book is back in play towards the end as well. Her wit comes at you from the side and it's great! But someone show her how an oxford comma works!!!

This book is sprinkled with nuggets every few pages and I'm already looking forward to reading more by Lamott, both nonfiction and fiction.

She REALLY likes using "whatever" as an "etc." And I think ChatGPT is at least partially trained on her writing, because the pages are absolutely littered with em dashes!
I'm slogging through this because there are scraps of interesting takes and useful information that I want to learn and know as a writer. But on the whole, NOT a book I would recommend.

Good grief she's wordy!!! I found myself tripping over the lack of sufficient and well-placed commas, the tendency to write long, and to interject heavily with punctuations that made difficult sentences all the more harder.
She does it so much, I'm writing tediously long sentences now!
Her words choices are also ... a lot. It's a bit pretentious and a bit insufferable, especially compared to Lamott.

Schwarzchild must have read this book in preparing to teach his Creative Writing class. I see a lot of his limited beliefs in the pages of Le Guin's advise. (Yes, I'm still salty 13 years later!)

The advise around POV shifts is feeling a tiny bit dated, because everyone and their mother is doing multiple POV these days. Granted, as Le Guin warns, you've got to do it well or you'll leave the reader feeling very twisted and turned about.

A time travel sci fi feels more my speed. But I'm about to witness a terrible time in history, and I don't have the stomach for it right before I sleep. Butler's writing is very evocative.

Some of this advice feels a tiny bit outdated. Le Guin approaches POV with a rigidity that I don't think is as necessary in today's fictional and narrative writing.

The writing is a bit difficult to get through just because Le Guin chooses to write in a atypical sentence structures and the delivery is often overcomplicated.

On the flip side, intentional repetition is a thing of beauty. I try to incorporate that in my writing as well. Done right, in the right place within a piece, it can really lift the whole thing to the next level.

Ha! I was just struggling with repetition in a recent writing activity. I am hyperaware of repetition and work to avoid the clunky, unintentional version. But when you're writing without editing, its bound to happen. And because I'm so aware and wary, I hear it more loudly in my writing than others do. It's interesting to realize others aren't necessarily as bothered by poor diversity in words as I might be.

Writing groups "give you a place to show up and a little benevolent pressure". This is exactly what I'm hoping The Open Notebook serves as, at least in the beginning. If we can move forward and be something more, later, that will be great. But for now, this is a time and space to work on the craft, slowly but surely.

Her sentence structures are so fascinating! A real masterclass in play across the pages.

This book has some nuggets. Definitely has me thinking.

That was rough! I can't tell if she was intentionally messing with the sentences & their structure, or if it was a lack of editing. There are some glaring mistakes, but it breaks my mind to think that Le Guin could make such mistakes & that this guidebook has seen so many reprints without them being caught and fixed.
I had started off thinking I'd want a copy of this book for my shelves, but the more I read it...nah!

Trucking my way through this book and because it's a nearly daily practice, and because I'm approaching it academically and conscientiously, I can see how it's starting to seep into my psyche and truly making me pause, think (critically!), and respond in a more mindful manner.

Less is resonating in this section. Stand out points: observe, be compassionate and empathetic, and the heart of what you write should be something you can stand by at a moral level.

I struggled with the words a bit. I did not find Kipling or Twain or any of the other writers' works to be "gorgeous" and easy to get through. I was tripping over my own tongue reading them. But that is, perhaps, more a me thing than the actual work by these much-celebrated authors.
I like the exercise suggestions and can't wait to incorporate them into the Workshop!

Atalanta juxtapositioned against Medea would've made for a more compelling story. On it's own, it was a little lackluster, especially against the lineup of Ariadne & Elektra.

I'm very curious to pick up fiction by Lamott now. And possibly her father, though I don't think he's in my usual literary wheelhouse.
I was surprised when I read she was only 28 when she worked through her second novel, spending 3+ years on it! That means she started working on it around 25. Which means her first came out when she was younger. At 25, I was ... an ignorant fool. Now I'm just a fool.