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Hello! September saw the opening of yet another independent bookstore in San Diego. It's a romance-themed bookstore called Meet Cute Bookshop, located in North Park, only a couple of blocks from a secondhand bookstore called Verbatim Books. Meet Cute's owners bill the store as "a queer-owned, feminist San Diego spot for romance readers (and the romance-curious) to hang out, and generally get nerdy."
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I went to the store's grand opening last Saturday, on Sept. 24, and it was such a good experience. The books were flying off the shelves faster than anyone could replace them on the shelves or in the displays, and it looked like everyone showed up in their Sunday best. (I felt a little shabby in my shorts and tank top, but it was such fun to see all the fancy outfits other people wore.) The store also has a huge mural inside that reads "Romancelandia," with each letter depicting a different romance trope. Honestly, everything about the grand opening and the store itself was delightful. |
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With Meet Cute's opening, that means San Diego has two opened new independent bookstores in as many years. It's wonderful to live in a city that can support so many! |
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I'm cheating a bit this month by including two titles I read in September:
Write Better, Faster by Monica Leonelle and
2,000 to 10,000 by Rachel Aaron. The latter refers to increasing your word count, which is what many writers measure the length of their projects by rather than page numbers. (This is because page numbers are subjective, whereas word count is less so.) |
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Part of the reason I've selected these two books for September's BBM is because I've been reading a lot of nonfiction about writing in general, but the goal I'm actively working toward is to increase the number of words I can write in an hour from about 500 or 600 to 1,000. There has been a literally centuries-long debate about whether creative writing as a whole can be taught, but I firmly believe that individual writing skills
can be taught. It just so happens that I'm not working on improving dialogue, setting descriptions, or character arcs, but a much more measurable metric.
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The part I didn't expect was tracking that metric! I thought I'd finished tracking of my work hours after ducking out of my corporate job, but in order to improve something, you need to know how things currently stand. Both books begin by explaining the importance of tracking the time you spend writing and your word count each time you sit down to work. And you know what? I don't mind keeping a spreadsheet nearly as much as I expected to. It's different when you're trying to improve your own skills instead of trying to conform to and prove that you're meeting someone else's expectations.
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Since leaving my corporate job, I've had more time to develop my writing and the time I spend working on it in terms of a concentrated business effort. I'm not aiming to become a full time writer (yet), but I do intend to turn my creative efforts into a secondary income stream. The most productive way I can work toward that goal right now is to increase my output: the more completed stories I write, the more stories I have to sell.
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The best part about both of both
Write Better, Faster and
2,000 to 10,000 is that they both emphasize that everyone's writing process is different, and that it will take experimentation and a willingness to adjust that process to improve it. Then they provide examples of what has helped them and others: outlining, plotting out characters' emotional arcs (including the villain's! Can't forget them), and, more abstractly, approaching your writing with enthusiasm and energy. At the end of the day, though, we all have to find what works for us.
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If you're interested in buying a copy of either books, you can get your own copy of
Write Better, Faster or
2,000 to 10,000 through Barnes & Noble or Amazon. (Monica Leonell also offers a slightly cheaper version of Write Better, Faster, directly from her website here.)
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And as usual, the above isn't an affiliate link and I don't make anything if you click on it.
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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis — a little hard to get into, but well worth the effort. Davis braids together struggles for freedom from oppression (usually state-sponsored oppression) from movements across the world, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Palestine and beyond.
Malice by Heather Walter — a queer retelling of Sleeping Beauty from Malificent's point of view. (Except her name is Alyce instead of Malificent.) I've never seen the Angelina Jolie movie, so I can't compare the two, but Heather Walter's book has an extravagent and impressive scope. The worldbuilding is excellent.
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