The Ninja Reader

Here’s something you need to know if you plan on following this blog for a long time: you are getting a lot of Julia Cameron recommendations. Just…. get used to that idea. I’m lucky because her books take a lot of time to get through because if they hadn’t, I’d probably have enough material to get me through 2015. And yes, I know, there’s a lot of workbooks and spin-offs and things that you probably don’t need in your life. There are about 7 different “Artist’s Ways” available on Amazon right now, and I can’t tell you whether to get the starter pack or the teacher’s cards because I haven’t used them. But I will say this. “The Artist’s Way” (the Original, single book, not the workbook, and not the one “at Work”) is absolutely fabulous and everyone should read it.

Yes, even if you are not a writer.

Self-awareness is something everyone should have, in my humble opinion. Writers may be the lot that is known for (and stereotyped as) having a ridiculously high opinion of themselves (which, if we believe Freud, is a sign of criminally low self-esteem) but being in tune with yourself, owing your fears and insecurities, and acknowledging your strengths is quite a universal skill set. And this is what this book is about.

Forget the morning pages. Forget the artist dates. Those are all props. The point of this book is to get the person reading it comfortable with every aspect of themselves in order for creation to happen.

That said, morning pages and artist dates are awesome. The latter I’ve been really inconsistent with, but the former I have been doing over a year, so much so I have now a favourite type of notebooks to write in, and I sincerely hope Paperchase doesn’t go out of business anytime soon because… I just need that.

(P.S. if anyone wants a stationary favorites post, let me know, because CAPITALISM!)

Back to “The Artist’s Way,” if there is one thing you need to get comfortable with, it’s hearing the word “God” repeated over and over and over again. Cameron uses it as shorthand for “creative energy,” aka that thing the Ancient Greeks thought causes creativity to happen, and it’s a nice tool because it takes some of the pressure off the individuals (i.e. if you don’t feel like writing, you’re not being lazy, the creative energy isn’t with you today.) Personally, I didn’t have too much of a problem with hearing “God” and “Great Creator” all the time reading this, but I realize that for some people that might be a deal-breaker, so – fair warning.

That said, what this book does is, through 12 weeks of exercises and reflections, daily morning pages and weekly artist’s dates, is getting us to confront every possible source of creative block we have, and celebrate all the good things we have in our lives (people who inspire us, hobbies we love, etc. etc. etc.) Getting through topics like fear of failure, fear of not making enough money, and working through any misconceptions we might have about art and artists, this is very much a journey of self-acceptance and getting comfortable with taking risks. Again – this isn’t just for writers. (It isn’t just for painters or sculptors or musicians either.) Being able to say “Actually, this isn’t working for me, for this reason, and I want to change” should be something everyone feels comfortable doing.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the point.

Comparing two of my current "writer prompt" reads. Not done with either but I have thoughts on both. (Good grief, I've forgotten how to write "both.) 

(Not trashing "The Blood of Eden" obviously. I kinda liked those books, even though I lost patience with Allie a lot halfway through "The Eternity Cure.") 

So you know how it is, you're sitting around, reading your Julie Kagawa, and you suddenly get a feeling you're reading the description of a movie? When I reviewed that book, I described it as "cinematic", although "trying too hard" would have been equally appropriate. It just seemed to me that book really, really, wanted to be a movie and wasn't afraid to use minute descriptions of the protagonist entering a bar, snowflakes trailing in the air and the wind ruffling up their long leather jacket. 

Why am I talking about Julie Kagawa's vampire dystopia romp, might you ask? Well, because if you take that, remove the "trying too hard" and ramp up the cool factor by a 100, you might just get "Messenger of Fear."

Full disclosure: I've met Michael Grant at a book signing. He's a pretty cool chap. This is the only book of his that I've read, but I'm already itching for the sequel because, really... it's action/horror in the best way possible. 

Another disclaimer: there are no vampires in this book. Or dystopias. Instead, we have a Grim-Reaper-But-Not-Really type story with some mythology that some people would describe as "refreshing," others as "esoteric", or as "hackneyed" (or even "trying too hard"), depending on their mileage. I liked it it. 

Our main character, Mara, wakes up without any memory besides her name. Nobody can see her, nobody other than a strange boy with the ability to manipulate time and space, who introduces himself as the "Messenger of Fear." More due to circumstance than choice, Mara follows Messenger as he goes about his duties, which are to find people who did wrong and challenging them to a game. Winning means atonement. Losing means punishment. And if you refuse to play, you get to face your greatest fear. 

Fair warning: some of the imagery in this book might give you nightmares. Mine even came with a warning, both on the book jacket and in the author's dedication (which, again, thank you!) Michael Grant's very well-known for his "Gone" series and the "Brzrk" series, and those of you familiar with his writing will probably know what to expect. Those who don't, I would say this: If you are comfortable watching/reading "Attack on Titan", you will like this. Or, I suppose, if you liked "Anna Dressed in Blood," you'd like this. 

Those of you who didn't, feel free to get the book and read it for the rest. "Messenger of Fear" is an action/horror/philosophical tale that balances its main components in just the right way to keep you hooked until the very end. Mara's quest to finding her identity is what starts the story, but it isn't by any stretch the most important aspect of it. The questions of what is good, what is bad, and what wrongs are the ones that we should be aiming to right, play a huge part in the narrative and, unlike some books, there is no clear, perfect answer by the end. The reader is left to ponder, just like one might do in RL after having to make a difficult choice.

The compromises we make are sometimes not perfect, but they are what they are.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll look up some books from Siobhan Curham. 

Not gonna lie, it took some talking into. I'm the sort of person who loves food and loves trying things out, yet between making something myself and going to a restaurant, I usually choose the former. It's not so much a money issue as it is a company issue. For whatever reason, I'd convinced myself that I'd feel weird sitting there alone, waiting for my food. (And I'm not talking about McDonald's here.)

However, I had saved money from a taxi the night before (not by my own wishes, I assure you; I just figured walking home was safer than standing in the drunken queue by myself) so I figured, why not. It didn't help that I'd just experienced one of the more miserable nights out in recent memory, which made the "splurge" even more in order.

Guess what? I had a ball.

Sara Maitland explores solitude in "How to be Alone" in such a way, I'm shocked I'd never thought about it before. Despite the fact that I'm a relatively solitary person, I spend a great portion of my day online, looking things up or writing for class, which, after a while, led me to burn out somewhat. People's company, while pleasant, felt like too much after a while, and at times, I felt like my head was being yanked in a thousand different directions all at one.

We live in the digital age where being exposed to stimuli all the time is the norm. Worse, those who try to escape it by embracing a more solitary lifestyle are branded as "mad, sad or bad." 

In addition to busting those stereotypes, Maitland provides some easy exercises and further reading on the question of solitude which I actually quite liked. The beauty of self-help books is, of course, in the eyes of the beholder, but having read it and recognized myself as over-exposed and over-stimulated, I found the advice in here incredibly helpful.

Going back to my restaurant example, I'm happy to report that, aside from a quick callback to someone else, my phone stayed in my bag and I didn't even feel the temptation to browse the web to distract myself until the food came. I took my time ordering, not because I was worried what the other person might think about my choice, but because I actually wanted to decided what to eat. I tasted every (excruciatingly spicy) mouthful of my food, and ordered dessert (which was divine. Period.) I left the restaurant feeling good.

I can't help contrasting it with the night I'd had a mere 18 hours earlier - at a huge gathering of (supposedly) people I knew, I'd barely spoken to anyone else. I shoveled food in my mouth because conversation was stilted and difficult. I danced with folks I barley knew, feeling like a fake the whole way through. I went home tired, heart-sore and disgusted at the amount of money that went into the whole thing. It says a lot when prepping for an event (aka hair, nails and make-up) are the highlight of your evening.

Whether conscious solitude is something you want to practice or not, my suggestion is not to write off the practice as silly, or as socially aberrant. If it's not for you, fine - neither I nor this book will judge you for it. 

It worked for me.

I leave it at that.

...then this is probably the book for you.

Not gonna lie - I miss sugar. No, that's not correct. I miss being able to eat cake and not feel bad, but that's really more my problem than the book's.

I did Sarah's "I Quit Sugar" program last year after my dermatologist told me to change my diet (I was breaking out and it was BAD.) Originally, I was supposed to quit coffee, chocolate, fat, white bread... basically, live off carrots and lentils. Which, in France (where I was at the time) was pretty much heresy. So I found "I Quit Sugar", which focused on this one thing and put a huge emphasis on being gentle with yourself, (and you could eat fat. Fat, it turns out, is good for you in certain non-processed and deed-fried varieties.) I liked it. It had some nice things to say.

But the thing about sugar is that it is in everything, and even cooking for yourself can be bloody exhausting. Enter this cookbook, which I bought earlier this year in an attempt to vary up what I was making.

I reiterate: This is not a dieting book. It doesn't preach. It invites you to try things out for yourself and adapt as you go along. That's my problem, really - it's so gentle and non-confrontational I feel like a complete twat for not being able to follow through my own wellness intentions. Again, though, that says more about me than it does about the book.

I'm not sugar-free, and I'm not completely done with using food as emotional support (or actual support. I train a lot and sometimes I need the energy.) But since trying this out, here's the changes that have happened:

- I stopped drinking 2l of Coca Cola a day

- I stopped eating entire packets of biscuits in two sittings (sometimes, it was just one)

- I stopped eating huge bags of crisps in one sitting

- I discovered I like pumpkin and spinach, two things I absolutely detested

- I like all vegetables, actually

- I have an excellent excuse to feck skimmed milk

- I have sampled a great variety of teas

I also shop more "sustainably", which is another one of this book's main points. Food wastage is actually one of the worst things we do in Western countries, and this book has a ton of tips on using leftovers, cooking in such a way that you don't throw anything away, (such as using all of the chicken you buy, right down to the bones) and also gives excellent tips on preserves. 

Oh, and it has chapters on sweets and chocolate, which is a huge benefit. I plan on using some of the measures offered (like how much rice syrup to use in the place of sugar to make meringues) to try out in other recipes as well.

All in all, it's a good book to try out.

Note: if you are vegetarian, gluten-free or paleo, this book has recipes that are geared towards that, but not all of them. Sarah actually offers alternatives to make a recipe more paleo-friendly or vegan, but this is what you need to decide on for yourselves.

I don't care. I like it that much.

The author of this book suffered from devastating depression. Baking helped her through the episodes and she compiled her favourite recipes in a cookbook, and the Irish royalties of it were donated to charity. This isn't what my review is about, but I figured I might as well get it out of the way now.

When I was a kid/teenager, I loved to bake. No joke, it was literally one of the things I loved to do most. I pestered my mother to teach me how to make pancakes and proceeded to make them every weekend henceforth, much to my family's displeasure (because our mixer was effing LOUD.) I browsed my grandmother's cookbooks and made lemonade cakes, and ended up bringing one back home. I got my mother to buy me a cake form as a back-to-school present and proceeded to bake, exhilarated by the fact that I could make ROUND CAKES WITH A HOLE IN THEM! (Yes, I genuinely thought that was exciting. Nobody had shown me any heart-shaped cake forms yet.) I made sweet and savoury biscuits that led to accusations from my family that I was making them fat.

Then I came to uni and I lost my mojo.

Was it the time commitment? That was part of it, but more to the point, there were few people I could force my baked creations on. Regardless of what they say about students being moochers, I found that, for the most part, the sanctity of one's corner of the fridge is kept with absolute strictness. Even more to the point, there was little incentive to buy mixing bowls and whisks when you're moving every year and shit gets left behind all the time.

Then came the time I went on a sugar-quitting programme that has given me such PTSD, I still feel guilty and shamefaced whenever I have cake. It's horrible! 

These days, whenever I try to bake something, it's an inevitable flop. It either tastes horrible, has the texture of drywall, or, most likely, both. So I did what any other girl does, turned my nose up at cakes and decided I don't care for them. (Spoiler alert: I do care for them.)

Reading Marian's book made me remember why, exactly, I used to love baking. Not because the final product would be delicious beyond belief, but because of the time and effort and skill it went into making something as simple as rock cakes. Because it makes me feel accomplished. And because, without fail, I would serve whatever I'd made to others and see their faces light up.

Food, to me, isn't just sustenance. It's about community and loving. You don't take the time to make something for somebody if you don't care for them. (That lot gets store-bought party mix and a bottle of wine and they're not missing out at all.) And the thing about "Saved by Cake", in the recipes and in all the notes in between, is that it just overflows with love, and it takes the reader along for the ride. "It's okay. It's just a cake." Yes, indeed. And a lovely cake it is. 

Or, at the very least, make you browse lots and lots of eggplant recipes online. Guess who's making moussaka tomorrow.

In which I ramble.

When I start consuming romance novels by the boatload. In this particular case, these holiday offerings from Penny Watson. 

Any more recommendations for romance? I'm really craving this type of stories right now.

Also - Oskar Klaus. Oh. My. GOD.

Note: I submitted this review for consideration at Strange Horizons. Since I haven't heard back from them for over a month, I will assume that it was not accepted for publication and therefore I can publish it on various social media, because this book is awesome and more people need to read it.

There is a distinct divide in opinions in the YA blogosphere when it comes to prequels, sequels, midquels, or spin-offs of best-selling books or trilogies. Some consider them as no more than a blatant cash grab; others think it’s a great way to explore characters and stories the author couldn’t write in the original. And indeed, the best pre-/se-/mid-quels seem to be the ones that can be read as stand-alones.

Set 600 years before the events of the Old Kingdom trilogy, Garth Nix’s “Clariel” is definitely one such book – despite the many things it has in common with the original books (Charter Magic, Free Magic, even a character or two,) it is set in a world drastically different world from that of “Sabriel.” The Old Kingdom is prospering, the King, Clayr and Abhorsens, are little more than figureheads, and Charter magic has gone “out of fashion”.

Clariel, granddaughter of the Abhorsen, is brought to the capital city of Belisaere thanks to her mother’s rise in status in the Guild of Goldsmiths. But where others would welcome the move for all the opportunity it presents them with, Clariel hates the city from day one – she has very little patience for all the pomp and circumstance enforced by the Guilds, she has no interest in playing political games, and she resents her parents for forcing her into doing something she has no interest in. She even goes as far as to devise a plan to run away, and enlists the help of some people from the former King’s Guard to help her.

The only catch? Clariel’s accomplices are trying to prevent a deadly conspiracy against the King, and they want her to help them first, by luring out a dangerous creature of Free Magic that they believe is helping the Guilds take over. The stakes are raised even further when Clariel discovers her own affinity to Free Magic, an affinity that might prove to be too tempting to resist.

One of the biggest strengths of Garth Nix’s style is how he can bring the reader into his world with just a few well-placed descriptions. World-building can prove very tricky, particularly in high fantasy, where various magical systems and creatures need to be introduced alongside the characters and the countries in which the story is set in. Trickier still is doing so in a prequel novel, where, presumably, some percentage of the readers are already familiar with the world. Nix accomplishes that, by taking some of our preconceived notions and flipping them on their heads:

Abhorsens, Clayr, the King: they all seemed to be relics of a bygone past, just as the ‘stone and mortar’ of the rhyme meant very little in the present day. This referred to the Wall in the south, to Clariel merely a curious landmark she’d heard about but never seen; and to the Great Charter Stones she knew only as they were depicted in a mummer’s play: big grey man-size puppets painted with gold representations of Charter marks. In Estwael they had become part of a comic turn in the Midsummer Festival, tall rocks that crashed into each other, fell over, got up again, and then repeated the whole process numerous times to gales of laughter.

- p. 19, Hardcover

The people who hold the magic are no longer in power; the big landmarks that carry that magic (the Wall and the Great Charter Stones) are either taken in stride or made fun of. Without any immediate threat, the Old Kingdom is prospering, but it also has lost its respect and reverence towards the things on which it was built on.

Another very interesting thing about the world of “Clariel” is how casually oppressive it is, despite being a seemingly egalitarian society. Women can not only enter the militia or learn a trade, they can prosper and rise in the ranks without encountering any overt sexism; the majority of families we encounter are traditional, but characters talk of unconventional arrangements (presumably same-sex or polyamorous relationships) as if they are commonplace; Clariel herself is written as asexual. But class struggles are still present – workers are striking and protesting, citizens who are not affiliated with the Guilds or the big trading houses are unable to prosper, and, because the King has secluded himself, nobody is able to challenge the Guilds as they seize power.

Furthermore, despite the abundance of opportunity present in this world, there is an underlying snobbism that condemns little dreams. In a curious parallel to our own Western society, the assumption is that the world is your oyster, but if you’re not diving for pearls, you’re wasting your potential:

“You thought that we limit the choices of our students?” asked Ader. “We do not, bit it is a sad fact that the great majority limit themselves. You might find it best to keep your ambition secret, Lady Clariel. Many here would consider it too small, a thing to be made fun of. (…)”

- p. 78, Hardcover

As the novel will go on to prove, wanton ambition can be a lot more damaging to a community and to an individual. Indeed, a major theme of the novel is how dangerous it is to force your idea of a good life on other people.

Like many of the previous protagonists of the Old Kingdom books, Clariel is very pragmatic and smart – despite being characterized as a hot-head, (a major part of her character) she’s able to quickly analyse a situation and draw conclusions. She’s angry with her parents for making decisions for her, she defends her dreams passionately, but she still takes the time to consider all the logistics running away would involve. (A horse, money, a disguise.)

That said, Clariel is still very, very young (two months shy of her eighteenth birthday.) She’s intelligent enough to read between the lines, to see other people’s motives, but doesn’t have the life experience and the maturity to emphasise with them. This, in turn, makes her very short-tempered and intolerant of what she perceives as weakness:

“Do you know what’s happening t Belisaere and the Kingdom while you stare out at the sea up here and drink tea?” asked Clariel.

“I don’t care!” shouted the King. He was almost sobbing. “I’ve had to care for too long and I’m past caring! Why does everything depend on me? (…)”

“I’m ashamed to be your cousin!” said Clariel, her voice growing louder with each word till she was nearly shouting too. “If you won’t act like a king you shouldn’t be one!”

- p. 221, Hardcover

It’s a realistic character flaw to have, one that isn’t explored as often as it should be – for all of the protagonists in paranormal and fantasy YA who are written as mature for their years, very few stories go ahead and ask the question: “But is that a good thing to be?” One major part of growing up is learning to make compromises and putting yourself into other people’s shoes, something that can be very hard to do when you believe you have all the answers and you think everyone around you is being complacent. In other words, Clariel reads like someone you might know. She may even read a little bit too much like yourself.

But then, isn’t this why we have literature? As readers, there are always books and characters that speak to us more through their flaws than their virtues. Sometimes we might even hate them, because they are so much like us and because they make a mistake we’d see coming from a thousand miles off; or, we might hate them because we know, deep down, that if we were in their place, we’d make that exact same mistake. Good books help us kill a few hours, but really, really good books, the kind that make us think about ourselves, are the ones that stay with us for longer.

And if you’re in the mood for the latter, then “Clariel” is definitely worth picking up.

Last year, when I thought I would do my postgrad research on social media and blogging and conflict, I thought it would be a good idea. We need someone taking things seriously and looking at how this impacts us and propose change. Even as a grad student. Work the system.

But oh, god! The whole Kathleen Hale thing is making me wonder if that's even possible. If someone can go on the Guardian and be praised for stalking another person, if they can get away with it with nary a slap on the wrist because they have connections, then what is the fucking point?

At this rate, I'll be better off studying conflicts in Russia. Or Syria.

Sign & pass it along! 

We are making this official and we hope you'll take this stand with us.

We as book bloggers will not give Kathleen Hale any publicity. No book tours, no interviews, no cover reveals, no reviews, not a shred of work from us. What she did is heinous and we can fight back in our own way. She has a new book coming out next year. Let's ignore it completely. 

Please join us. Come to Twitter & declare #HaleNo. Say No to Kathleen Hale.

(Credit to Cuddlebuggery for the epic tag)