Welcome to a new feature to keep me writing. When I felt a little blocked, I discovered a site called Plinky. It’s a series of questions designed to get people writing. The answers can even appear in a blog, although I prefer just having a look at the questions and going from that point. Today’s Plinky Prompt asks about current books. My book talks usually happen after a book is read, but what am I reading right now? Ever the typical Gemini, I juggle two books at the present moment. I usually have one book, dubbed a ‘substantial book’, read slowly and thoughtfully. The other book belongs to the light-and-fluffy category to drag into the tub or on a bus ride. I linked the titles to the Winnipeg Public Library holdings for local readers and send out some love to the WPL people.
Substantial Read: Reading Like a Writer by Francine Pose
I picked up this book a while ago and it survived the move. Francine Pose talks about learning from literature to evolve as a writer. Her chapters cover the minutiae on such things as words and sentences gradually getting a little bigger into things like paragraphs. I currently find myself reading a chapter on narration. Each of her chapters contain great excerpts to support her points, even inspiring me to seek out the short story collections contributing the snippets.
The book is not even half-way done. It’s more like 37% according to Goodreads, and I did so deliberately. The hardest during, and after, this book involves mindfully reading books a little more next time. While I feel grateful for the writer class I took last fall, the next step is read the things I want to write. Now comes the hard part: Make sure to write the things I want in my own voice without sounding like the writer who inspired me.
The Fluffy Read: Naked Heat by Richard Castle
I already read the first book entitled Heat Wave in this novel series serving as a unique tie in to the TV’s ‘Castle’. Unlike most TV tie in novels, the characters feel inspired by the television, but do not feature the characters themselves. (This is the kind of meta giving die-hard TV geeks a migraine.) The viewer can see a bit of Richard Castle in journalist Jameson Rook, or a bit of Kate Beckett in Nikki Heat. Actually, who are we kidding? Fans of the show can see A LOT of the series characters right down to Ryan and Esposito, answering the question: how much of the novel did Rick base on his experiences?
The voice is pure Rick Castle. We see the wit, the quickly moving plot, and more than a little wishful thinking regarding Kate Beckett Nikki Heat. For library cataloguers, the Nikki Heat series presents a unique cataloguing challenge. In the name of authenticity, readers get an author interview, even a picture of Richard Castle as if he actually exists. What does one do if Richard Castle is a fictional character, writing a fictional novel, and portrayed by an actual actor (Nathan Fillion)? If you are a cataloguers, or anyone working in a library, feel free to share below how your organization dealt with this quandary.
What new question will I tackle next? Stay tuned…
Unpaused Life 
We catalogued it as if Rick Castle is a pseudonym of Nathan Fillion. Not the knock Mr. Fillion, but the “slightly OCD” cataloguer in me is really annoyed by this. “It is wrong!” and yet, short of calling up ABC and demanding the ghost writer’s name, I have no way of fixing it. No where in the introduction or acknowledgements do they even hint at who actually wrote the book.
I kinda still wish I was in Brian’s class, this would have been doosy of a question.
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