Read the Books You Have

It might be the product of following so many book blogs, or perhaps the perceived challenge of a new as yet unfilled book case. It might even be the propensity to wander book stores when left unsupervised, or Amazon's 'recommended for you' section designed to separate you from your hard earned cash.

Making Good Art and the Fear of the Fraud Police

From this...

I have a growing and slightly inappropriate obsession with a married couple. I knew him first, and met her through him before I knew that they were properly serious. I follow her on twitter, him on facebook. For some reason I feel the need to keep these separate. Thanks to them, and a few other people in my life I'm thinking and doing more about my writing. I'm writing more often and I'm taking what I do much more seriously. There's a couple of pretty good videos from them at the bottom of the post.

On having big boobs...

Normally I post a mildly amusing photo, related to the content of my posts over there on the left had side of my blog. (I experimented with alternating left and right for a while, but I decided that it just looks better over there on the left). Today, I'm not going to do that. Today I'm talking about something quite a bit more personal, and so I'm going to post a photo of me. I'll post it further down, since I'm still working up to it. This is a big deal, so bear with me.

Procrastination or There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block

From @benwhitelaw

Last year I was talking to a newly published author (let's call them NewAuthor) at a book launch dinner, and discussed with them my theory on the non-existence of writer's block. Later I found out from a friend who had also been talking to NewAuthor that they had also had a conversation about writer's block, except it had been NewAuthor telling my journalist friend (or Journo) that they were suffering badly from this thing I had insisted doesn't exist, and had moved countries in an attempt to unblock. After hearing that from Journo my first reactions were to feel guilty and tactless. I'd like to blame it on the wine with dinner, but the truth is I'm incredibly opinionated, and rarely think at the time about how my opinions will be received by others. That's normally left until something like this happens, and then I feel guilty. I've been thinking about NewAuthor and our conversation that night quite a lot this week, as I struggle with my own writing.

Confessions of a Justified Bibliofile (1)

Welcome to the first of my Confessions of a Justified Bibliophile blog features, where I discuss the authors and books which have made the biggest impact in my life and on my writing. Each will be accompnied by a 'confession' related to the author or genre of the month.

Since this is my first Confessions... post and my Blogoversary, I'm holding a little competition to win the book I'm discussing. Just fill in the form at the bottom of the post. The winner will be selcted at random on 11th March 2011. I'm using The Book Depository, so check that they ship to your country here. So what could you win?

Title: The Red Tent
Author: Anita Diamant
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis: You will have heard of Joseph, the youngest son of Jacob and the oldest son of his favourite wife Rachel, but do you remember his sister from the Bible? Dinah's story barely takes up any room in the book of Genesis and it is told from the male persepective. This novel expands Dinah's story and attempts to interact with the account in Genesis to answer some of the questions many readers face; how could the son's of Jacob slaughter an entire city? why would a Prince look to marry a woman he had raped? what happened to Dinah?

Confession #1: I love reimaginings of existing stories. Whether it's Little Red Riding Hood comic book style, a novel based on a play by Shakespeare or a funky new spin on the vampire, re-tellings have always captured my imagination. So much so that my PhD is on the rewriting of myth in contemporary literature because the best thing about doing English Lit as a subject is that I get to work with literature I love, rather than literture someone else thinks is important.

This novel was recomended to me by a friend who thought that every woman should read this book. Not only is the writing excellent, the research into the history of the red tent shows and the concept of reading between the lines of patriarchial society really griped me. In some places the word midrash is used to describe this novel, something which Diamant disagrees with. Midrash is a particular way of interpreting a biblical story which goes beyond the surface level of the text and fills in gaps in the narrative. Its also sacred, which is where Diamant disagrees, quite rightly giving the full title as The Red Tent: A Novel.

Dinah is a character who haunts the reader long after the book has been closed. She is witty and bold and flawed and hurt. She somehow manages not to come accross as bitter, but melancholy. I am not a mother, but I would like to be some day and The Red Tent along with Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty are novels which inspire me to be a good mum (hopefully) and a good writer.

You can check out Anita Diamant's blog here and her thoughts on midrash and The Red Tent here.

To enter fill in this form. All informtion supplied will be used for the puropse of the competition only and will be deleted once a winner has been selected and contacted. If you supply a shipping address which is not on The Book Depository list for shipping, your entry will be deleted, so please check first. Good luck!