Tag: fiction

Read This If–You Wanna Revisit My Childhood

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Back to school time always makes me think of my school days, back when my biggest concern was my mom buying the right flavor Kool-Aid and getting all of my homework done so I could play outside. During the summers, my mom would walk her daycare kids (and her two kids) up to the library to get books for the week. Back then, my mom was a big reader and she tried to pass that on to all of us kids. As a result, I remember working my way through The Bobbsey Twins and The Boxcar Children series. Unsupervised children solving mysteries was my jam. I also read a lot of Goosebumps and R.L. Stein books, too.

But I had some other books that I loved, too. I bet you might have loved these, too.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Scwartz- Folklore stories collected and retold by Alvin Scwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell in a way that scarred an entire generation, the book found resurgence when a film version was made in 2019. But for some of us, this book never went away. It was often an ’80s/’90s kid’s first introduction to literary horror and our first exposure to urban legends.

I remember reading this book with my hand covering up the illustrations because some of them were so intense, I couldn’t concentrate on the story. Not that the stories weren’t intense on their own. I’m sure more than one of those stories and/or illustrations were responsible for some nightmares.

The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin- This series of books about a group of teenage babysitters dealing with the challenges of child-minding and growing up was adapted twice as a television show, once as a movie, and is now available as a graphic novel, which I think is pretty cool. The series covers everything from dating to divorce to blended families to death to diabetes to learning disabilities to racism. There were also Super Specials and a Mystery series, as well.

It should come as no surprise that I came by affinity for the series out of ego because the president of the Baby-Sitters Club was named Kristin, went by Kristy (I went by Christi in grade school), and was a bossy tomboy like me. I didn’t read the entire series. At some point I lost interest, but for several years, these books had me by the collar. I loved them and couldn’t get enough of them.

The Midnight Club by Christopher Pike- A group of terminally ill teens living in a hospice get together at midnight to tell each other stories. According to author Christopher Pike, the book was the result of a request from a terminally ill teen who wrote to Pike and asked him to write about her and the other kids in her group who would meet at midnight to discuss his books. It was adapted as a TV series in 2022.

I read this book when I was a freshman in high school during study hall and I loved it. For years, I would randomly think about the book, but I couldn’t remember the title or author. Once I started working at the library, I used the book finding skills I developed to track it down…and then request it from another library. The reread was just the nostalgia I needed and the book held up to my faded memories.

I hope this little stroll down my memory lane inspires you take your own stroll. And if not, well, feel free to sit it out.

Read This If–You’re Not Big on Mysteries

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m not a real big fan of mysteries. Nothing against them, I just struggle to enjoy them. I think part of the problem is that I was cursed with the stupidest superpower in that I can call a twist in a book/movie/TV show without even trying. It’s not much of a thriller when the thrill is gone.

But that doesn’t stop me from occasionally reading them. As it turns out, I’ve discovered that I’m really not that into thrillers, but old school mysteries and sometimes cozies are pretty enjoyable. Yeah, I still call the twists most of the time, but there’s something else about those kinds of mysteries that engages me. Maybe they’ll engage you, too.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie- The first Hercule Poirot mystery. A rich older woman is done in by a dose of strychnine and she’s got a house full of suspects, most notably her younger husband and one of her stepsons from an earlier husband’s previous marriage. Poirot has no trouble figuring out this murder is a real family affair.

I got this as an ebook freebie and though I was familiar with Agatha Christie’s work, I never read any of it before this book. I thought this one was fun, as murders go. Poirot is a charming detective to ride along with. There are plenty of red herrings and a fun twist. Honestly, it’s a good time. Because I enjoyed this one so much, I ended up getting another freebie of hers, the first Tuppence and Tommy novel, The Secret Adversary, which I also really liked.

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The first Sherlock Holmes mystery. Split into two parts, the first part details Watson coming to live with Holmes and the two of them investigating first the murder of a man named Drebber and then the murder of his secretary, a man named Stangerson. Naturally, Holmes solves the murder, and the second part of the book is the murderer’s back story. There are Mormons. I wasn’t expecting that.

Prior to reading this, I’d only experienced Sherlock Holmes in movies, mostly Young Sherlock Holmes and the Robert Downey, Jr. version, but also Basil Rathebone in the starring role as well. This was another ebook freebie that I decided to try. I was surprised how much I really enjoyed it, which I shouldn’t have been since I like the movies, and yet! I thought the book was a lot of fun. Like I said, I didn’t anticipate Mormons. I ended up reading The Return of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes after I finished this one and still had a good time.

Having Wonderful Crime by Craig Rice- Number seven in the John J. Malone and Jake and Helen Justus series finds Jake and Helen on vacation in New York City when they befriend a drunk bridegroom whose wedding night ends up a horror show when his bride disappears and a beheaded woman is found in her bed. Jake and Helen then call on their friend, attorney John J. Malone, to come from Chicago to help them solve this baffling mystery.

Thanks to Covid, the library’s book sale one year ended up being mystery bags labeled by genre. My roommate got a mystery bag of mystery books and thought I might actually like this one. She was right. It’s a bit screwball and a lot of fun. It’s got that zippy banter you expect between married couples back in ’30s and ’40s. The mystery is also something of a ride. I haven’t read any of the others in this series, or by this author (a woman who wrote under several names), but they’re on my list.

The Sunset Years of Agatha Sharp by Leonie Swann- The aging residents of Sunset Hall, a house share owned by Agatha Sharp, are stunned to hear that their neighbor has been murdered and thrilled that the body the police are currently investigating isn’t the one in their shed. The logical thing for Agatha and her housemates to do is find out who killed their neighbor so they can pin housemate Lilith’s death on them. The investigation takes them all over the village of Duck End as they try to unravel the mystery because of course, nothing is as easy as it seems.

Did I figure out the twists early? Yes. Did it matter? No. The folks living in Sunset Hall are so damn fun and quirky -old folks who had interesting younger years- that they’d be worth the read no matter what. And they still managed to surprise me! Hettie the tortoise is the best character, obviously. She was the only truly reliable narrator. And I was totally prepared to dislike the grandson, but he grew on me, sort of like he did with Agatha. It’s a little darker than some of the cozies I’ve read, but I still thought it was entertaining as hell.

I hope these mysteries solve your problem of liking mysteries. If they don’t, well, go find a clue elsewhere.

Writing–So About This Non-Fiction Business

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Non-Fiction Section

My new sooper sekrit project is non-fiction. I’ve read a lot of non-fiction but unless you count blog posts, I haven’t written much of it.

Non-fiction is kind of intimidating to someone who spends most of their time making shit up. Sure I have to have my facts that I do use straight, but that’s just in the background to make the lies more real. Non-fiction leaves no bullshit room. It’s all gotta be accurate.

There’s also the worry of being boring. There’s no witty characters to hide behind. It’s all on me, baby. I’m somewhat entertaining on Twitter and in blog posts, but the idea of maintaining that for an entire book-length work seems scary.

It IS scary.

I’m terrified of being boring, mostly because I know how boring I can be. There are whole stretches of my life that are broad strokes of blah beige. I don’t want any book I write, fiction or non-fiction, to be boring. It’s just easier, to me anyway, not to be boring writing fiction.

To combat my fears and insecurities, I’m tackling this project bit by bit, no pressure. I’ve got an outline and now I’m writing out the basics. No pressure. No worries about the need to be correct or entertaining. It’s all about getting it down on paper and seeing what I’ve got.

Hopefully, it’s something real.

And not boring.

Writing–2013 Reading Goals

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Fiction Stacks

I need to come up with some tangible reading goals for 2013.  So let’s do a quick review of what my 2012 goals were and what I actually did.

My goal was to read 12 books, 6 fiction (at least one from a genre I didn’t normally read), 6 non-fiction (at least one memoir and only one could be a re-read). In reality, I read 20 books, 6 fictions, 6 non-fiction, and at least one of the fiction books was from a different genre. I kind of blew the rest of the goals.

So here’s my idea for 2013:

-Read 24 books. That’s just four more than I did read and it averages out to two a month. That should be more than doable for me.

-At least 10 need to be non-fiction. I failed to read my required number of non-fiction books last year (strange since I usually prefer non-fiction to fiction). I need to do a better job of balancing my intake. It’s not quite half, but it’s close enough.

-Only ONE non-fiction re-read counts towards my total. I re-read non-fiction a lot so I have to watch it. I need to look for new stuff.

-At least one of my non-fiction reads needs to be a memoir. This was one of the goals I failed last year.

-Only one of my fiction re-reads counts towards my goal. I don’t usually re-read fiction, but I’ve been hankering to read a couple of Stephen King books again.

-I will continue exploring other fiction genres. That means I need to limit the number of horror books I read. I say no more than eight.

-Read more of books by people I know. I need to be more active in supporting the authors that I interact with on Twitter. Reading more of their books would be a good idea.

I think these goals will be a great way to keep me productively reading this year.

Let’s hope I do better at meeting (exceeding?) them than last year.

Writing–Reading Goals/50 Rejections Results

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Fiction S-Z (a sequel)

I set myself two goals for the years. I wanted to get fifty short story rejections and I wanted to read twelve books. The results were mixed, but honestly, it was an overall fail for both goals.

First the fifty rejections. That was kind of a lofty goal, in retrospect. I tend to submit in bursts and I really didn’t have enough completed short stories to make this possible. Even the short stories I wrote during the year weren’t really enough to make up that deficit. Even though I scaled back the goal to twenty in November, it still wasn’t enough. As of right now, I garnered seventeen rejections for 2012. An improvement over last year’s total for sure, but far short of my goal. I think next year I’ll be a little more realistic and shoot for a more obtainable number.

The reading goals I set for myself were pretty specific (if you remember; I didn’t…I had to look them up). Not only did I have to read twelve books, six of them had to be fiction and six of them had to be non-fiction. Of the fiction books, at least one had to be in a genre I don’t read. Of the six non-fiction books, one had to be a memoir and only one could be a re-read.

The good news out of this is that I ended up reading a total of twenty books and I did read a couple of genres I normally don’t read. The bad news is that I failed in the non-fiction goals.

14 1/2 of the books were fiction (Margaritaville had both short stories and essays so I counted it as half). 5 1/2 books were non-fiction, falling half a book short of my six book goal. Two of those books were re-reads. And I didn’t manage to read a full on memoir.

So while I read more fiction than I usually do and read more overall than I have in a while, I totally bombed the non-fiction portion of the goals. I think next year’s goals are going to reflect that and my need to achieve balance.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with my lack of achievement. I’ve got some work to do next year.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

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Bookshelf

I said sometime close to the beginning of the year (the exact date of the post eludes me) that one of my goals for the year was to read. I needed to change the way I thought about reading and to do that I set the goal for myself to read twelve books this year, at least one a month. Six had to be non-fiction, six had to be fiction, and only one could be a re-read.

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve been living up to the challenge I set for myself. Not quite four months into the year I’ve read seven books, four fiction, three non-fiction, one re-read. I admit that the book I’m reading now, a non-fiction book, is also a re-read, but I think I can make up for that seeing as I’m over half-way to my goal and I still have a little over eight months left in the year.

I’m glad to say that the challenge is doing exactly what I’d hoped it would do. Because I have this goal hanging over my head, I’m making time in my day to read, even just a little bit, because I don’t want to fail. I’m conditioning myself to read every day as part of my job. I’m getting it out of my head that I don’t have time to do it and instead, I’m making time to do it.

As it should be.

Writing–Happy Endings

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I don’t write happy endings.

Okay, I do, but I don’t.

It’s something I’ve noticed as I accumulate short stories and novel first drafts and it’s not just because I write a lot of horror. That’s not to say that I don’t write satisfactory endings in the sense that the plot is tied up and the questions are all answered because I do that. Sometimes I even do it in an a happy way. You have to offer up a satisfying conclusion if you want to write a story worth reading.

The happy endings I’m talking about are the stories that end with the girl getting the guy or the guy getting the girl. I’ve written a few stories and some novels in which that is a possibility. The set-up is there. But I don’t do anything with it. I might play a little with flirting or a smidge of sexual tension, but in the end, the characters ride off into the sunset…alone.

It seems to be an expectation for most stories involving a man and a woman that they’ll end up together. It’s an expectation I don’t live up to and I don’t live up to it on purpose.

I don’t think it’s always necessary. Just because two characters share the same story doesn’t mean they have to hook up by the end of it. Maybe they’d really like to. Maybe they do hook up at some point after the story ends. But for the time period that’s written about concerning these characters, it doesn’t happen. It happens if it’s necessary for the story and so many stories I write don’t find it necessary. And that’s okay! It’s better to serve the story rather than shoehorn something in to satisfy a reader expectation that clashes with everything else about the story.

I think that frustrates people. The last paragraph coupling happens so often that they’re disappointed when it doesn’t happen and they somehow interpret that as an unhappy ending, no matter how upbeat the story ending was. And though I have quite a few upbeat endings (I may be over estimating a little), I still manage to disappoint people.

This doesn’t bother me as much as it should. I’m satisfying people whether they want to admit it or not. Not every ending has to be happy.

Those last two sentences are filled with a lot more innuendo than I intended, but when talking about satisfying happy endings, you run into that risk.