Books – Juanita Collins

March 11, 2019May 11, 2021

On joining a book club and being surrounded by life experience

Dear Vi,

Last October I was invited into a book club by my friend Jean.

Call me a nerd, but I have always wanted to be in a book club!

It was a little intimidating at first, to tell the truth. I mean, this is a super-educated, well-traveled, well-read, well-spoken circle of impressive critical thinkers who can also cook like nobody’s business. They meet each month at a different member’s house, and you should see the spread each month’s hostess puts on! OMG seriously delicious…I could belong to this group just for the wine and “lunch.”

I am the youngest at 57. Our eldest member hosts 90 years with grace and a keen wit. I want to be just like her some day.

…Also, this is a long standing group of friends who have been reading together for decades. Yes, you read that right. Decades. (Did I say I felt a little intimidated? Yeah.)

And they have welcomed me. Which blows me away. I can’t even…

I’ve read four books with them so far: The Golden Age by Joan London; Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto; The Alice Network by Kate Quinn; and The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman. This month they are reading Finding Gobi by Dion Leonard. Quite the eclectic selection!

It is really interesting hearing their opinions, and especially–especially!– soaking up the stories they tell around each novel’s topic. For example, when discussing The Golden Age, the group reminisced about Polio. And after reading Forgiveness, they told their own stories about friends and acquaintances (of Japanese descent) who had been forced into internment camps during the Second World War.

Here’s the thing: I have lived most of my adult life surrounded by people my age or younger. It wasn’t until we moved to Salmon Arm that I had the opportunity to spend much time with the generation one up from mine, to listen to first-hand stories on subjects that are, well…historical from my perspective.

I feel the same about the quilters guild that I belong to, where eight members are turning 80 this year, and one will celebrate 100 years in April.

Being part of these two groups is like being surrounded by a room of older sisters, aunts, and even a grandmother or two. And the laughter! Let me tell you, these ladies like to laugh.

Seriously, if the collective life experience of these women could be transmogrified into electricity, it would power a small city.

Do you have the opportunity to participate in an activity with a diverse group of people including those a generation older than you?

And do you belong to a book club? If you don’t and you’d like to, ask at your public library. I’ll bet they can point you in the right direction.

Read on!

August 13, 2016May 11, 2021

“At that time of night, the only traffic consisted of trucks filled with bodies and detainees, and police cars that roamed the streets like lost wolves howling in the darkness of the curfew.”

That sentence was written by Isabel Allende, and can be found at the bottom of page 442 in her 1985 novel, The House of the Spirits.

I honestly think this may be one of the most perfect sentences ever written.

You don’t need to know what the book is about to feel the fear and despair in these words.

I won’t do a book review on The House of the Spirits because there are so many on the internet already. I will tell you, though, that I’ll probably read it again someday.

What’s on your nightstand?

March 7, 2016

90,423 words later

I have finished the rough draft of my first novel.

It’s gone past the critical eye of two critique partners, so it isn’t as rough as it would have been. In fact, some parts aren’t too bad at all.

I thought I’d feel elated. I thought a giant whoo hooo would come bursting out of me, that I’d be jumping all over the house and popping the cork on a bottle of something fizzy. Done! Done done done!

But…now that I’ve actually typed the words the end at the bottom of the last page, I feel kind of … sad. Let down, somehow. Aimless. It’s finished? Really? But I’m not ready for it to be finished yet. I want to know what happens to my characters. What will they do? Where will they go? I want to keep on living their lives.

But that’s the way of it, I suppose. Every story must end.

So what happens next? Off it goes to Beta Readers, and then I start revisions.

Revision revision revision. Edit. Rewrite. Edit some more. Maybe more Beta Readers.

Until I hit the bottom of the last page. Again.

At some point, I’ll have to give the poor novel a title.

And then?

We’ll see.

Meanwhile, some yarn therapy:

October 26, 2015

This post is about books (because I can’t think of a better title)

I went to the library last week and came home with four books.

Only four?

Well…I still had four on my desk that I hadn’t read yet. And they’re going to be due soon, so I thought I’d better limit myself. Here’s what came home with me:

I’m a pretty eclectic reader.

I adore the library. One time about a year ago when I was feeling kind of blue and homesick, I went into the library and the librarian remembered my name. She also happens to be the librarian who looks a lot like my Whitehorse friend Carrie-Lynn. Anyway, I cried a little bit. Yes, it was kind of embarrassing to have to wipe my tears at the library check-out desk. But that’s only one reason I love the library.

Mostly I love the library because it’s full of books.

There is one thing that makes me twist my mouth sideways, though and it’s this:

Terry Brooks and Ben Bova do not belong in the same section.

It’s impossibly annoying to sift through all the Fantasy in search of a new SciFi to read. Especially because there’s like 50 Fantasy books for every SciFi one, which is shameful. Even more shameful is the fact that they’re all lumped together on the same shelf.

C’mon! You wouldn’t shelve Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl in the English History section just because Henry VIII is in it, would you? Of course not!

Now, some people are going to disagree with me, but it’s my blog so I can say what I want. And what I want to say is this:

Fantasy Fiction and Science Fiction are not the same thing. Ben Bova and Terry Brooks do not write the same thing. They are not even similar. The only thing Bova and Brooks have in common is the word Fiction…and both their last names begin with the letter B.

Terry Brooks writes fantasy fiction. The world in a Fantasy novel includes magic swords, elves, epic quests to save the kingdom from the evil druid, like that.

Ben Bova writes science fiction. The world in a SciFi book is built on technology. Maybe theoretical, way-far-out advanced technology-of-the-future, but technology all the same.

Maybe human beings will never advance their technology to the stage where we create cyborgs who take over the earth, but for sure an elf with a magic sword is never going to be the one to save us from them.

Issac Asimov himself said that “science fiction has its groundings in science and is possible, whereas fantasy has no grounding in reality, and so is not possible,” and I’m gonna stand by my man on this one.

No response required. You know where I stand.

February 10, 2015

Thankful for Rick Rack: The Simple Woman’s Day Book, January Edition

Today I am taking part in The Simple Woman’s Daybook. I haven’t done it for awhile. Today seems like a good day for it. Check out the link to see what other simple women are up to today. And if you’re a blogger, join in! 🙂

Outside my window… The sky and the lake are both the same colour. Fog obscures the far shore. Everything is shrouded and still.

I am thinking… about how I am procrastinating this morning. I mean to wash the floors but keep finding other things to do first. Like this blog entry. And how I couldn’t do anything (even get dressed!) until I sewed a bag. And my fiction story is waiting for me. I would prefer to devote the majority of my day today to it. And I just might do that! Who needs clean floors, anyway? (insert shifty-eyed emoticon here)

I am thankful…for the love of my husband and the care of my friends and my laptop and the web. And for pink shoes. And rick rack. Definitely thankful for rick rack this morning!

In the kitchen…no mess! Nothing baking, nothing cooking. Just the kettle waiting to be filled.

I am wearing…leggings and my funky green baby-doll top, my favourite brown sweater that could really stand to be new (but maybe that’s why it’s my favourite – well used/loved), beige & brown polka dot socks and my birks. and a good collection of loose threads. Insulation, you know!

I am creating… a bag! I needed a bag for the Friendship Garden Quilt that I finished (click the link to see it) and just happened to have some happy denim-like sunflower fabric that I got at the thrift store that actually kind of matches the quilt! But I had some bobbin tension issues…

Ta da! Rick rack to the rescue!

The bag looked kind of small. Would the quilt fit?

The pattern is from The Green Bag Lady. I changed up the pattern a bit…4″ straps instead of 3″ and I used French seams.

I am going…to the Big Band Valentine’s Day dance in Whitehorse on Saturday! Pink shoes, you know. Just sayin’.

I am wondering…who of my old friends will be there to dance with me? 🙂 …And also what it would be like to write a song. My friend Fawn Fritzen, who is an awesome singer, is taking part in FAWM (sort of like NaNoWriMo except it’s February Album Writing Month) where she has to write 15 songs during the month of February. It would be fun to write a song together, except maybe more fun for me than for Fawn, lol! since I have never written a song in my life and can’t sing a note to save it!

I am reading…Festive in Death by J.D.Robb. I checked it out from the library and it is due tomorrow!

I am hoping…that I can finish this book tonight! Shouldn’t be a problem…I love J.D.Robb’s Eve Dallas stories. 🙂 (did you know that J.D.Robb is actually Nora Roberts? Such a versatile author! And prolific…eee gads, that gal can write!)

I am looking forward to…spending time at the Fox Lake cabin. Really looking forward to it. I want to walk in the door and not walk out again for days and days. I love it there so much!

I am learning…always.

Around the house…dust bunnies to sweep. kitty and doggy footprints to mop, a rug to vacuum, a bathroom to polish.

I am pondering…whether I should sign up for a free Open University Future Learn course called Start Writing Fiction, which focuses on the central skill of creating characters. It’s 8 weeks long and starts at the end of April. Only 3 hours per week, but I am so slow, I know I will need to devote more time than that to it. I should sign up for this. Yes, I should. But I’ve never taken one of these free Open University courses before. Have you?

A favorite quote for today…“If we walk far enough,” says Dorothy, “we shall sometime come to someplace.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

One of my favorite things…cold left over pizza and tea, earl grey, hot – for breakfast! Served with a good book in a corner of the couch and don’t talk to me until I’m done!

A few plans for the rest of the week…Spend time writing on my fiction piece. I need to get another couple of chapters ready to send to my two critique partners, Holly and Lisa. And I’ve got Holly’s chapters to read and make comments on. Plus, I am determined to make 14 (yes, I said fourteen) baby elephants for the elephant-a-long that I’m participating in. 🙂 Here are the momma and daddy elephants: