Category: Uncategorized
How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
I don’t claim to be a huge speed reader, but I have to admit that from my informal blog survey, I do read a lot faster than most people. I’ve been reading lots of books since I was very young, so I’ve had a lot of practice at reading quickly. It’s something that seemingly came naturally to me, but looking back I can now actually point to some things that helped me become the reader I am today. So I’ll share them with you now with the caveat that while they work for me, they may not necessarily work for you.
1. Read aloud frequently.
Reading aloud is a whole different animal than silent reading, believe me. When you read aloud frequently you have to be confident, change your tone of voice to engage your audience, add certain vocal inflections to convey different meanings and sometimes even sneak a peak ahead so you don’t stumble upon larger words you don’t necessarily know. I know it may sound weird, but reading aloud even once a week can actually help your reading because it forces you to put more thought into the text itself. What message is the author trying to convey? What does their word choice say about their writing style, the characters and the tone of the story?
So what does this have to do with reading quickly? Well, when you’re speed reading you have to be able to pick up on things like the author’s tone more quickly than you’re used to. You actually have to think a lot faster and reading aloud prepares you for that because you’re practicing analyzing the text as you read. Once you can analyze the tone of any text you’re reading aloud without thinking about it, analyzing the text you’re trying to speed read will come more easily. Continue reading
An Example of How Not to Write a Review Request
Comment: Dear Sir/Madam,
would you please be able to write the review of the poetry anthology. you can give a look to the profile of the anthology on the links[Several links to the poetry anthology.]
I am looking forwards to work in close cooperation with youbest wishes and regards
[Name redacted]
A few months or so ago this would have made me insanely mad. Now it just makes me facepalm. Why? Because no matter how many articles I and other book bloggers write about the importance of reading review policies and personalizing review requests, people like this man who emailed me won’t listen.
Yet I’m still going to dissect the many reasons why this man went wrong because I’m a little cranky and nitpicky today:
1. He addressed me as Sir/Madam.
Honestly, it’s not that hard to find my name. It’s in the first sentence on my About page, which is along the top of my blog. This is pure laziness and carelessness. He doesn’t care enough to take a few seconds to find out my name, let alone my gender, so why should I even bother clicking on the links in his email, let alone agree to review his book?
2. His grammar is terrible for a writer.
I don’t claim to be a grammar expert; I break the rules of grammar quite frequently here on my blog because a blog is quite casual. A review request is not, however. Review requests are not exactly formal, but they are not so casual that you don’t even bother capitalizing the first letter of your sentences. I get that poets play with the rules of grammar a lot more than bloggers, but to anyone who considers themselves a writer this is completely unacceptable. Even if I had been addressed by my name (or even by my correct gender), I would reject his request for this alone.
If you think I’m being nitpicky about the capitalization, re-read the last sentence: “I am looking forwards to work in close cooperation with you”. Enough said.
3. He didn’t provide me with any information other than telling me to check out links.
If you want me to review your book so badly, you had better include some information to at least get me interested in it. Telling me you’ve written a ‘poetry anthology’ and just giving links makes you look lazy and makes me want to hit the delete button. Again: why should I review your book if you can’t even take the time to copy and paste your own blurb into the email?
4. He didn’t see/chose to ignore that I am closed to submissions until 2014.
This could have been accomplished by looking at my review policy. It’s at the top of it in bold, capital letters. A writer has to know how to read as well as write as far as I know. So why couldn’t he take the time to read my review policy? If he did in fact read my review policy, he chose to ignore the fact that I am closed to submissions for another four months! That, my friends, is massive disrespect and won’t help you get your book reviewed.
5. He didn’t read my full review policy anyway.
You know that part in my Review Policy in the third paragraph that is in bold letters stating what I won’t review? Well, guess what! Poetry is something I won’t review unless you’re Dante, Homer, Virgil or Milton. I guarantee the man submitting his poetry anthology to me is none of the four I mention. Therefore, even if he somehow didn’t see that I’m closed to review requests, he obviously didn’t read the review policy at all. I think we can safely conclude that he was too lazy to read my policy, right?
I know that the types of authors who already do this sort of lazy/ignorant/thoughtless thing won’t be reading this post. If they do, they certainly aren’t about to change right now. However, maybe new writers looking to learn how to write review requests might read this and learn a little something. If nothing else, they’ll learn about why so many reviewers are more than a little frustrated at authors. (Especially self-published authors unfortunately.)
The Mystery of the Randomly Appearing Books
As a book blogger, I’m quite used to getting books in my mailbox. I don’t get several a week like some reviewers do, but I do receive a couple every month. Sometimes I don’t remember where these came from or whether they’re from a publisher, author or giveaway. Usually a quick glance through my inbox will tell me whether I’m supposed to be reviewing it right away for a publisher or author or whether I won it in a giveaway and can put it in my leisure reading pile.
Which brings me to my current dilemma. Last week I received two books in the mail: The Beautiful and the Cursed by Page Morgan and Doomed by Tracey Deebs. As you can see, they’re not by the same author (not even the pen name is the same) and the publishers are different (Delacorte Press, a division of Random House and Bloomsbury respectively).
Since I actually don’t win that many giveaways, I am in doubt as to whether this was a giveaway prize because I would remember winning two books. At least, I hope I would. Especially since the mysterious sender went through all that trouble to ship me two hardcover books from the US at a cost of over $20!
So here are my clues to this mystery:
- The authors are not the same
- The publishers are not the same
- I don’t remember winning a giveaway with these as prizes (or it was a giveaway and I wasn’t contacted by the prize provider beforehand)
- This package was sent to me by an M. Boone of G something ville, USA (the writing is illegible)
- They used the wrong postal code (one letter off) so the package was lost in Quebec and Ontario before making its way here
Well, I’m putting it out there for you guys: Where did these books come from?
Discussion: Male YA Love Interests
I’m not sure about you guys, but speaking in broad terms I find that most male love interests for female main characters fall into two categories: the cold, distant but hot jerk or the goofy best friend who’s always stuck by the MC. Of course this is a huge generalization, but it really does seem to happen a lot in YA today, especially when it comes to my nemesis the love triangle.
Generalizations aside, what I want to talk about is this: what makes a good male love interest in YA? (We’ll talk about female love interests later this month.) Do you have a favourite love interest? Why is he your favourite?
Personally, my current favourite is Po from Graceling. He’s not a distant jerk but neither is he the goofy best friend either. No, he’s a mature young man that doesn’t play around when he realizes that his love for Katsa is mutual. Throughout the story he protects Katsa while realizing that she can also protect herself, decides what he wants out of life and treats Katsa like an equal partner in their relationship. What a novel idea!
What it’s Like to Write Seven Reviews in One Day
Due to work being busier than ever, my little health problem and family obligations, in July I had been reading a lot and reviewing very, very little. By mid-July I had probably read 20 books and written zero reviews for them. As you guys know, I’m a horrible procrastinator, but every once in a while inspiration strikes like lightning.
All the authors reading this know what I’m talking about: your heart speeds up and you feel the instant need to go on your computer and type like mad to get all of your ideas on paper while you can. You don’t stop for anything: food, drink, bathroom breaks, etc. It’s energizing, but it can leave you drained for days afterward. I know some authors that get completely wiped out after 5000 words in a day (fair enough, really), but what’s it like on the reviewer end? Do reviewers experience similar fatigue after going on a review writing binge? See for yourself! Below is an accurate recreation of my thought process as I wrote seven reviews in one day, my record to date.
Review #1: I am in the zone!
The first review I tackled on that day was a review for a book I absolutely loved. As you guys may or may not know depending on whether you write reviews as well, it’s very easy to gush about a new favourite book than to do a ‘meh’ review. My average review is about 3-4 paragraphs, but this review ended up being 6 paragraphs long after some substantial editing so you guys wouldn’t get sick of my gushing. Writing this review had the effect of truly putting me in the zone, meaning I was all energized for review #2. Continue reading