Skip to main content

My Group Discussion Club

The last couple of months I’ve been busy keeping up with the reading schedule for my Book Club. This Book Club is one that I run out of my house twice a month. The group is comprised of a handful of friends who were interested in regaining the love for reading. As for me, I had several reasons for wanting to institute, mainly to do with enriching my vocabulary and giving me a more educated idea of what type of material sells in today’s market.

The first book was my pick and it was Blood Sins by Kate Hooper (New York Times Bestseller), and odd pick but not bad first read. The second book, we selected as a group and it was chosen with the intent that we would watch the movie at the conclusion of the book – it is The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger (National Bestseller). We all finished the book this past weekend and although the book was brilliantly written the ending left me baffled. I am disappointed to say the least, I know the group feels the same way.

So, I ask myself how can a book be a bestseller if it doesn’t gratify? How can a book be a bestseller if it fails to deliver? Does bestseller mean exactly THAT, a book that has sold a predetermined amount of copies? Delving more into this bestseller situation, I ask are there several characteristics that are shared by other bestsellers? How does one write a bestseller?

FYI - we will be watching the movie tonight at my place so as you can imagine, I/we are anxious to see how the movie sizes up.

Be well folks!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Back in Phoenix!

Finally back home and back to my daily routine. Time to get back to the business of writing and promoting. That said, please take the time to visit www.mywritingden.net for details on my first blogging contest of 2012 to start on 4/30 - there will be prizes. Also, be sure to stop by my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/MyWritingDen1 from time to time to keep up with my latest escapades. That's all for now folks - take care and be well! PS: hope you guys like the new blogspot layout :-)

Writing is HARD work. There I said it!

Recently, I had a conversation with a fellow writer about different writing styles. We talked about how some writers can simply sit down on a computer and write on command; I cannot. My pre-writing process can take me ten, fifteen, twenty minutes or more and it usually involves me ‘getting in to character’; I need to connect with the hero and heroine before I can delve into their lives. It is then when I’m emotionally attached that ideas begin to form I’m able to capture the thoughts and the scenes and the story begins to unfold. I can tell you that when I begin to write a story, I too experience the same nervousness that a lot of writers feel. Will anyone read my stuff? Will anyone care about what I have to say? This is the fretful process of a writer, yet, we, I, push forward and write with excitement, optimism, and a lot of discipline. On an amusing note (or maybe not so) one thing that we, writers, often encounter is that non-writers tend to think that writing is easy....

A Long Weekend Ahead :-)

Family/Friends: For many Americans this is the first big holiday since New Year's (not many people get Civil Rights or even President's Day off for that matter), so I hope you have fun plans and enjoy the time outdoors with  family and friends. A quick update about my writing, I have received feedback from three publishers and although all of it has been positive it will require me to revise 75% of my work (each story  is >6K words), needless to say the task at hand is somewhat dauting.  I have, however, taken a couple of days just to think about the best approach and plan on implementing some of my ideas this weekend.  To those of you who keep up with me (Twitter, FB, this blog, etc.) I truly appreciate it.  You keep my spirits up when the 'doubt bug' creeps in. Take care and 'til next time! Maria