Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 13 Comments

Rounding Up the Best Reads of 2018

No, not beach reads. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Revived from my Thanksgiving food coma, my family made our almost annual trek to the beach for off-season rates on a boardwalk-front room, rainy trips to the arcade (we can all agree on skee ball), and reading to the tune of some pretty good surf (or so I was told).

With November and its captive, NaNoWriMo, losing their grip, I turn to logging some of my best reads of 2018, including Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas’s book of poems called Weather, which (trust me) is a perfect name for a collection including many place poems set in Northeast Ohio. (More on this poet soon, I hope.)

Seems I’m “on” again with poetry, a reading practice which helps the fiction flow. But I haven’t stopped mooning over my fave novel I read this year, Amor Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow, which I talked about here. (Expecting some kind of twice-tolling timepiece this year, Santa!)

So when my favorite writing- and book-blogger from New Zealand, Kim at Writer Side of Life, asked for 2018 fave books, I couldn’t resist singing the praises of that very Gentleman. Here is Kim’s entire list of Bloggers’ Picks: Best Reads of 2018, which includes historical and modern novels, the literary and popular, a memoir and even a murder. Of that list, I’ve read three–including Charles Frazier’s Varina, which I talked about here and Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, which I…um…didn’t. What would you add to this Best Reads list? Comment here or on my Facebook page.

And since we’re heading into gifting season, what are your fave books to gift–for children and adults?

*For those of you who pay attention to my nonsense, my new muse in stone (likely actually Zeus or Heracles/Hercules) has been (diplomatically) dubbed: Grateful Edgar deVacca and titled muse of resourceful NaNo writers everywhere. (More on NaNo lessons learned coming soon…)

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 17 Comments

Plentiful

Grateful Edgar deVacca, muse of resourceful NaNo writers everywhere

I was raised on The Whiners.

Remember them? Doug and Wendy Whiner (played by Joe Piscopo and Robin Duke) from Saturday Night Live? Get a healthy dose of the 1980s favorite whining sketch comedy duo here. Don’t miss the one where New York City Mayor Ed Koch gives the couple the key to the city and they whine ungratefully, “We wanted to go to Toledo.”

Sometimes I can’t help myself. All the fullness of life–the blessings of busyness with family. A full table. Work that fulfills me. Friends who get me. But some days, I just want to go to Toledo. You know what I mean, and I mean absolutely no disrespect to Toledo. (I’ve been there; your city has a lovely zoo.)

So, I’m taking a moment before I get caught up in the bustling cornucopia of life that is Thanksgiving Week here in the U.S. to say that I’m thankful for you.

…And also for my new marble muse in recline, above. (Thanks Momentmal at Pixabay.com.) Suggest a name for this old guy below, and I’ll reveal the winner once I recover from my food coma on Friday.)

Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 6 Comments

a bit of writerly advice for #NaNo day 13…

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Free image courtesy of KathrynMaloney at Pixabay.com

Read.

Yep, that’s my writing advice for this luckiest of days during NaNoWriMo (at a point when my word count is stalled at 8,237).

Last night, I finished the novella (remember those; they’re having a renaissance, I hope) titled Camp Olvido. I could have been writing or plotting (ha, that’s a joke), but I needed to recharge. So I read.

Written by Lawrence Coates, Camp Olvido is set in a Depression-era migrant workers’ camp in California and will remind you of Steinbeck’s work, but this 2015 book is its own rare and wonderful gem. Read it for the compelling history, story, images and language that will leave you awed. It’s that good.

So, I wrote the author to tell him. OK, maybe it’s two pieces of writing advice today: No. 1: read. No. 2: respond to what sings true and clear for you on the page.

Happy reading and writing. Happy NaNo!

How’s it going, if it’s going? No NaNo for you this year? What are you reading and loving right now?

Feeling social? Let’s connect on FB and Twitter. Like a post of mine; I hope you’ll share with your friends–both social and otherwise!

 

 

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 15 Comments

Writing to find the way home

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I am home.

When my husband and I found our house on this street in the best little riverside village we didn’t even know existed, that was it: we were home.

However, there’s more than one way to go home; just as there are so many wonderful and varied definitions of what home means to different people. Check out Christine’s take on this week’s Gin & Lemonade With a Twist writing prompt, Home, at I’m Sick and So Are You: “My Body is My Home.” And another blogger friend posits home as a feeling.

What is home to you?

Ever get olfactory déjà vu, and you think: this place smells like home? Or, a person’s accent takes your mind to the street where you grew up? Or the way a loved one squeezes your knee or tucks your hair behind your ear ignites your primitive brain and takes you there, wherever that is, home.

I write fiction to get my characters–and by extension me–home.

I generally start writing when I have that first, budding image of my main character. Before I sit down to write, I feel a sense of unease, even anxiety, rising as I begin to imagine this character’s problem. (There has to be a problem.) Sometimes, I’ll also imagine the final image, problem righted, character home (if not in geography, in body or mind or spirit.)

Between the beginning image and the end is the journey–home.

Wow, when I write it out like this, it sounds simple. (It’s not simple.) But maybe thinking about the fiction-writing process in this way can ease the actual writing part just a little bit, whether you’re doing NaNoWriMo or not.

And here’s a writing advice gem in the The Guardian from an author with quite a few books under her belt, Kate Pullinger. So, she’s reached home a lot. This quote speaks to so many aspects of my life, really:

Writing is a kind of confidence trick – you have to con yourself into thinking you can do it, into thinking that what you are writing is the Real McCoy.

Back at it…

I hope you’ll join in.

Handy links:

Lorna’s Gin & Lemonade With a Twist writing prompt for the week: Home.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated (and sane).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 15 Comments

NaNo progress: or, the method writer’s lament

NaNo progress–see how I did that?

OK, let’s call it NaNo Lite, this journey I’m on.

What’s NaNo? NaNoWriMo, if we’re being formal, is a kooky little challenge, whereby one writes a 50,000-word novel draft in the month of November.

Yeah. That.

You see, this past weekend was the first weekend (before monsoon season returned in force) that felt like fall. Crisp, sunny, sweater weather. I tossed a baseball with my kid, twice, and it was like a Hallmark card. Forgive me if I couldn’t hole myself up 24/7 in my office to bang away on my keyboard, but I’ve written before about the importance of living to writing that is not-so-sucky. Yep, dreams.

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My wonderful neighbor’s Little Free Library and bench provide a good spot to stop and smell the book glue.

Another excuse for my lackluster NaNo progress: this manuscript I’m beginning is historical (in parts), which requires research, which is SLOW, but not un-fun. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been researching Finland–it’s Winter War (which began in 1939) and its culture (then and now), which I believe would have slapped me hard had I wasted my glorious fall weekend indoors–NaNo or not.

There are method actors, right? I think I need to be the next method writer. (Just imagine how clever I just thought I was coming up with that idea; until I googled and found this, and this, and this.) Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

However, speaking of sun, why not, in addition to getting inside my characters’ heads, get outside in an environment like that experienced by my characters. In short, this novel may require me to brave some colder temps this fall–maybe even some cold-weather swimming (up to my knees, perhaps!). In doing so, I hope to find my sisu (a Finnish term for stick-to-it-iveness, fortitude, guts) and maybe also find this novel.

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My ride to my outdoors writing spot. I know, right? Notebooks and special pen (first draft is always longhand!) in the basket.

You want numbers? NaNo is a numbers game. Well, I admit I started with several thousand words prior to Nov. 1 and have hit 7,115. A good chunk of it I wrote outside, Sunday, using up that extra hour given to us by the Fall Back gods here in the U.S.

I’ve also finished reading one book on Finnish culture, and the pertinent parts of another on the Winter War against the Soviets (which is all kinds of David vs. Goliath awe-inspiring). As I research, I keep adding books to my TBR: a book on Finnish fairy tales; a translation of the Finnish epic poem, the Kalevala; a book about the Lottas, the female version of the Finnish Defense Corps. (Special shout-out to my Finnish blog followers (of which I believe I have two!))

And thanks to all for sticking with me on this blogging journey and NaNo detour. Here’s hoping the destination is sunny.

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My view from my outdoor writing spot. I’m not complaining; well, my butt got a little cold sitting at a picnic table, but still…

Are you doing NaNo? How’s it going? What’s your word count? How many research books have you added to your TBR since Nov. 1?

 

 

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 9 Comments

Art Works

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This post’s photos taken by me of Donald Stoltenberg paintings on display (and for sale) at Annapolis Marine Art Gallery, Annapolis, Maryland.

Give me a painting of a shipyard over a regatta, a work boat over a pleasure cruiser. Give me the smell of diesel, sweat, and fish. Might not be pretty, but it works.

For me, art that works–that shows scenes of toil and industry, of creating and crafting–appeals more than art that features placid scenes. Sorry Manet, Monet, and pretty much anything on a rou de someplace.

Why? Well, there’s the Rust Belt influence, the legacy and lore of waterways that sustained the heavy industry that built places like my native Cleveland, Ohio, along Lake Erie, and like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with its three rivers.

And, like Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the late artist, Donald Stoltenberg, was born in 1927. Stoltenberg was new to me, until a recent visit to nearby Annapolis.

While I gravitate to industry and toil in art, I look for the same in the literature I read–and write. To me, a character is never more him- or herself than when working. Why? Simple. Work breeds conflict and conflict drives story.

Some of the best advice I received as a writing student was to introduce characters to  readers by showing them at work. This gets the characters out in the world, acting and reacting–and soon (as we all do) facing big problems, problems that will need to be, ya know, worked out.

So, as I think about the characters of my current WIP*, I’m putting them to work, testing their mettle, and seeing what they’re made of. Works for me, and I bet it’ll work for you.

What are you working on right now? A blog post? A story? A piece of art? What works for your characters? For you?

 

*Speaking of my WIP, I’ll be taking much of the month of November off from actively blogging to focus my attention on research and work for my WIP, as well as submitting to journals and agents before the end of the year. But I will be back! In the meantime, please see my categories above for writing advice, author interviews, publishing journey woes and successes–and keep on reading and writing (the Rust Belt and everywhere else).