The Guilt of the TBR Wall

The books are all staring at me.

There’s a novel by Jack Vance I got this last summer. It’s short. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours to read. It reminds me I told myself I’d only buy books I’d read quickly. And have I? No.

There’s a novel by a friend. I haven’t read it yet. I found it in a bookstore and was so excited for her I snapped it up. I read the first few chapters and complimented her on her prose. I was sucked right into the story. But did I keep reading? No, I got distracted by something else.

Oh, and look at that ridiculous novel I couldn’t help but get. Amish Vampires in Space. Yes, that’s a real title of a real book, and I’ve been meaning to get to it.

My TBR wall heaps on guilt. Why aren’t I reading more? And right now I’m reading an ebook?! How dare I! I can’t take an ebook off my physical TBR wall!

Am I the only one that struggles with guilt when I look at the books I haven’t read? I thought reading was supposed to be fun! A way to escape or learn or any number of things, but where did this guilt thing come from?

Well, I’m supposed to be reading more.

What’s funny is that the books really don’t care. I know we love to give things personalities, but in reality, they’re just objects. They don’t actually have desires. The only person I’m disappointing is me.

And maybe my wife who has to live with my TBR wall.

Which means the best way to get past this guilt is to just forgive myself. I can read, and read for enjoyment. And I do. But I don’t have to read out of some sense of duty. I’m not shirking some assignment. The books are there for me, not me for my books. And that means it’s okay if I haven’t read them.

It’s okay!

And that means it’s okay for me to buy more books, since there’s no guilt involved, right?

Right?

A Family’s Journey through Lord of the Rings

My eldest son is about to go back to college. He requested for his last weekend home to watch all of Lord of the Rings.

That’s a lot of movie in one weekend, yo.

But we watched them all as a family. We’ve watched it before, but this time around I recorded some of the responses from the kids. Experiencing a story with others brings up new thoughts, surprising insights, and… well, sometimes some laughter.

So I’m sharing some of my family’s responses, in the general order that they happened:

  • My six-year-old daughter informs me, “Elves aren’t real. They just put things on their ears like [my older sister] does.”
  • A certain elf appears for the first time. My six-year-old daughter declares, “There’s Legolas! He’s my favorite.” Yes, the six-year-old has a crush on Legolas.
  • Throughout the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, you get snatches of black speech. For some reason, I got an image of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean taking on the part of Sauron. I now want to see someone edit in Rowan Atkinson in the background of various Lord of the Rings scenes.
  • I’ve ready plenty of theories on what would happen if Sam kept the Ring. But what would happen if Pip had received the ring? I mentioned it to a friend. He thinks Pip would use it for tomfoolery, and I suspect much the same. My friend suggests also that Pip would likely end up the same as Gollum then. I think that’s pretty reasonable.
  • Gimli desperately wants the fellowship to go through Moria. But he doesn’t know the password. Why doesn’t he know the password?
  • My six-year-old asks, “They use fake weapons, right? So no one dies?”
  • My six-year-old remarks, “The balrog has a good costume.” Yes. Yes he does.
  • Another comment from the six-year-old: “Gimli has a really long beard!”
  • My college student would like to live in New Zealand now. However, he thinks that New Zealand and Norway are next to each other. My college student probably needs to take a geography course.
  • My college-aged son says, “He broke his toe. You gotta say it.”
  • My six-year-old now would like a horse. She is quite partial to the Rohirim.
  • I think if I grow out my hair, I could cosplay as Theoden. No one agrees with me. This makes me sad.
  • Theoden: “Is this the worst you can do, Saruman?”
    College-aged son: “Never say that! Why do people in movies never learn?”
    Me: “People in movies have never seen movies.”
    15-year-old daughter: “Not true! Spider-Man!”
    Me: “Okay. No one in Lord of the Rings has seen a movie.”
  • Legolas skateboards.
    Six-year-old: “Can I do that?”
    My wife: “No.”
  • Six-year-old, of the large tree people: “Those are gi-ents!” I am proud of her play on words.
  • Six-year-old, when an ent is on fire: “Fire will kill him to death!”
  • Sam, in Osgiliath: “By rights, we shouldn’t even be here.”
    My wife: “Like you weren’t in the books!”
  • Apparently the six-year-old thought Pippin and Merry were the same person. She was very confused.
  • My fam started a kill count for Eowyn. They’re convinced she might have more kills than Legolas or Gimli, at least for Return of the King. After all, she took down an Oliphant, a fell beast and the Witch King!
  • An argument broke out among the family as to how many Wilhelm screams they caught.
  • I’m no longer allowed to sing, “Where there’s a whip, there’s a way.”
  • The six-year-old, advising Sam and Frodo: “Throw Gollum off a cliff!”
  • The six-year-old: “That’s how you destroy the eyeball. By destroying the Ring!”

And thus we have concluded another watch of an amazing epic. I’ll be back with more writing content next week!

Blurbs are from Beelzebub

Why did you buy that book anyway?

My guess is the first thing you noticed was the cover. Something in the art caught your eye. It conveyed the type of story that you didn’t even know you wanted to find.

And then you spotted the title. It tickled the imagination enough that you picked the book up.

And then what did you do?

Oh, my friend, you read the back of the book. I know you did, and I don’t blame you! Perhaps you were disgusted because it was just one-line reviews from people trying to convince you how wonderful the book was. Perhaps you were exasperated because the text told you how groundbreaking the book was, but nothing about the story itself.

Why did you turn to the back of the book? Why, you wanted to know what the book was about. You wanted to read the blurb.

And that, my friend, may be the hardest thing I have ever had to write in my life.

Write an 80,000 word novel? Oh yeah. I can do that, and I have!

Tell you what it’s about? Yeah, that’s difficult, but I can do that.

But you see, a blurb is not a summary. It’s not a synopsis. A blurb grabs the reader’s attention and tells them why they must read this book. It conveys the tone, the setting, and enough of the plot and characters to make the reader say, “This is something I gotta read.”

Oh, and make sure you do it in a few hundred words, too.

And I am convinced blurbs are Beelzebub’s punishment for writers who think they actually have talent. Oh ho! You can spin a story, yes, but can you tell me what it’s about without sounding like an idiot? Of course not! Slap some words on a page, my friend, but you’ll fail this task as surely as Sisyphus fails his mountain climbing challenge.

I know many writers fail at this. There’s a reason that publishing houses often employ people that aren’t authors to put together ad copy.

And last night I sat and agonized over three blurbs for an upcoming trilogy.

My friends, this was not an evening I relished.

But… it’s done. It’ll have to be. We sent the blurbs off to our cover artist.

And that means that within the next week or two… we might be able to share some covers with you. And some news.

And maybe… hopefully… some blurbs.

Oh, and in the meantime? The next time you browse through some bookshelves, pick up a book and absorb the blurb. Take a moment to thank someone for the artistry on display there. It took work to get those words on that cover!

A Year of Writing: 2024

The end of the year rockets toward us.

S. Usher Evans, an author I follow, posted everything she wrote this year in a recent newsletter. It was fascinating seeing how much she had done in 2024. I enjoyed it so much, I figure, hey, why not do the same thing?

So what have I written this year?

  • Altira: Art is a Weapon, Book Four
    • Altira longs to be alone. As a young girl she was adopted by a skitterling family who are always, always there. She sneaks away to make her art. And then something happens that lets her art come to life. Now invaders have come to the city, and other beings like her art are coming to hunt her. She may never be able to be alone again.
    • This book will see the light of day… eventually. I had posted book one of the saga on my Ream account, but I didn’t get much traction there. Seeing as how I have well over half of the six-book saga written, I don’t want to waste the effort. At some point I’ll come back, clean the whole thing up, finish it, and then publish all six books.
  • These Endless Grueling Years
    • Told through letters, a pastor in modern America struggles with depression to the point of resigning from his position.
    • This book will likely never see the light of day. It was really more me exploring a topic. Still, I’m glad I wrote it. Sometimes an author just needs to write something for himself.
  • Dragons of the Iron Forest
    • Selah didn’t steal a tree. You can’t prove anything. She just moved it into the city so maybe, maybe, she wouldn’t have to leave the city every day just to get food. But bringing green into the Geared City has caught the attention of the Fake Man, and he will either make her his agent… or he will destroy first her sister, and then Selah herself.
    • Stay tuned! Hopefully I’ll be able to share a lot more information about this book in a month or two!
  • How to Be a Dragon
    • In these modern days, many dragons have forgotten what they are and have taken on the lowly appearance of humans. This handy guidebook will instruct such unwise beings on how to reclaim their draconic form and proper draconic practices.
    • This started as a TikTok video that went viral. Enough people wanted to see a real guidebook that taught how to be a dragon, I wrote one! We plan to publish this one, but we want to make it a fancy edition, which means a lot more work behind the scenes. You’ll be able to see it, but we have many steps to go through first.
  • Elowyn: Daughter of Three Worlds, Book One
  • Elowyn: Daughter of Three Worlds, Book Two
  • Elowyn: Daughter of Three Worlds, Book Three
    • Elowyn’s eighth grade year is going… well, fine, mostly. But a creep has begun following her, cosplaying as some sort of bug thing. And then he hurts two of her friends. And then he tries to kidnap her. And then her dad saves the day using an acorn black hole thing. And things get weirder from there. Elowyn’s year is about to get a lot stranger.
    • That’s right! Dawnsbrook Press plans to release another six-book middle grade series, and the first half is drafted! When will it come out? Stay tuned!

Seven books in one year? And as this post gets published, I’ll have started work on Elowyn book four. I’ll count that as a win. That said, I’d like to get even more writing done next year! How about some goals?

  • Elowyn: Daughter of Three Worlds, Books Four through Six
  • Unnamed Science Fiction Adventure Project, Books One through Six
  • Bonus Content for The Dragons of Londinium
  • And being honest… I’ll probably get distracted by some other random project along the way.

So… a lot more work to get done.

Time to get to work then!

The Calm of the Tree

I was never what you’d call an active kid. Sure, I played basketball, but that’s because literally every single other boy in my grade school class played basketball. That was a combination of peer pressure and not even realizing it was an option to not play. I wasn’t exactly hyperactive either. My mom has told me repeatedly that when I was young, you could give me a book and stick me in a corner and I wouldn’t move for hours.

Sure, I wasn’t active, but that doesn’t mean I was at peace.

I always loved reading. I always loved comics. I never got into sports. In other words, for many years I was the target of bullying. After all, if I didn’t watch all the football games on Sunday, what kind of boy was I? While the worst of it wouldn’t hit until eighth grade, I had never been popular.

I’d get home from school and hide in my room. If my parents let me, the tv in the living room was on cartoons or maybe Star Trek. I lost myself in other worlds.

And maybe that’s why the Christmas tree was always a wonder.

In our old house, the tree was always next to the couch. You could lay on the couch, with your head toward the tree, and look up and see only the magnificent golden lights. I’d turn off the lamps around the room and the overhead light. I’d attempt to turn off every light in the house except that tree.

And there in the glow of those lights, in the shadows of pine needles, I found peace. Every light was a little hope. No one chased me. I didn’t need another world to flee into. This one was just fine.

Dad would turn on a cassette of Christmas music: Canadian Brass or Manheim Steamroller. Maybe the King’s Singers. John Denver and the Muppets was another favorite. The notes would cocoon me. No need to worry.

A Baby has been born.

See the Light shining.

Hear the angels rejoice.

And soak in the light. Absorb that peace. Savor that moment of rest.

The tree was all I needed.