Book Review: Still Alice

Book Review: Still Alice
By: Lisa Genova

Alice is a Harvard professor of cognitive psychology. She has just turned 50 and been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. While smart enough to find ways to hide her diminishing memory skills, she eventually finds she has to reveal her secret, causing her trusted colleagues to treat her differently and slowly, lose everything she has worked so hard for.

Unable to deal with the idea of losing everything that makes her ‘Alice’, she creates a system that will help her keep an eye on herself. When she is no longer Alice, she has a plan that will help her pull the plug. But will she remember?

An interesting thing happened to me as I read this book. I began to feel almost as though I was the one with Alzheimer’s. No, I wasn’t forgetting things, but if I had just put down the book, my actions would be very conscious, almost as though I was keeping tabs on my own memory abilities. I was being Alice. For example, after reading the part where Alice’s husband, John, wrote a note in big, black letters on their fridge ‘Alice, don’t go running without me’, I put down the book and headed to the grocery store. But before I opened the back door, I paused. Was I allowed to go to the grocery store alone? That’s how deeply this story affected me. That’s how deep I crawled inside.

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I’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

I’m pasting old blog posts from 2 years ago into WordPress and all I gotta say is, I’ve come a long way. I read over some of those posts and I want to edit them! I want to clean up the writing, add hyphens, rearrange sentences and a lot more. I’m not though. They need to remain as a reminder of where I’ve come from. I sure have gotten a lot more serious and ‘about the business’ in my posts though–holy smokes!

One of my first posts surprised me. I forgot what a noob (newbie) I was when it came to the humongous world of writing. I had not a clue. I owe a huge thank you to all those literary agents blogging their little hearts out as well as the community over at AgentQuery. Those two things have been huge in helping me get to where I am today–a better writer who has her head in the game (and knows which room the game happens to located as well).

Updating in Progress

For those of you who are visually observant, you might notice that I changed my banner. I’m suffering (I use the term, loosely) from a head cold, making tough editing decisions a bit more difficult than usual today. Therefore, since I am unusually patient when under the weather, I am tinkering with my website. I’m making the changes I’ve been planning to make for the last 6 months. Who says being sick isn’t a blessing in disguise?

Anyway, I have changed my banner thingy. And there will be a few more changes (maybe even the reappearance of my blogroll! As well as links to my Twitter and Goodreads posts!) while I remove the Dreamweaver aspects of the site and switch the content onto the pages I created here, into WordPress pages. Am I making sense, or am I going technogeek on Tylenol Cold on you? Well, basically, what I am trying to say is that some of the pages you have bookmarked may change. Your RSS feeds, however, should remain unchanged. I will do my best to put ‘forwards’ on the pages I ‘remove’ so your links still work. (Essentially, take the ‘www’ out of your links.)

Wish me luck, I’m going in!

Updates:

* Please note that the email icon at the top now works if you are interested in dropping me a line. No spam, please.

* Website now has a tagline. Man, that was like writing a personal ad.

* Resources page is updated. Also posted a bit of Goodreads stuff there.

* Blogroll is back!

* Redirect should be working from the main site. You should only get WordPress bloggy looking jeanoram.com now.

* Twitter and It’s All Kid’s Play are RSSed in now.

What else? I think it’s good to go. If you notice any issues, let me know! Thanks.

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Update 10

I forgot to post an update last night. I’m at 95, 618 or so. It’s coming down and my critique partners can see the difference. Yay!

I’ve been twittering a bit about the process and word count as I go. I’m jeanoram and you can find me here if you would like to follow me or drop in from time to time.

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Update 9

We’re getting there. Updated word count: 96, 292. And yes, I thought this version was ‘prefect’ before I started taking out the ‘it goes without saying’ aspects. Ah well. What makes it stronger, makes me cross-eyed.

The Problem of Bobbing Heads

Lately, I’ve come to realize that I use ‘nod’, ‘nodded’ and ‘nodding’ too often. In a way, it is lazy writing. In another way, it is a character mood-check shortcut for the reader. But either way, with 57 instances of the word in my manuscript, am I running the risk of having bobbing head characters?

I am leaning towards, yes. It is too many nods. (I have cut some out before that count, if you can believe it.) The question is, where do you need a nod, and where would a different action work better?

Men tend to nod to show they agree with what someone is saying. Women tend to nod to show they are listening and to encourage the speaker to keep talking.

In my manuscripts they nod because…well, I’ll share a few examples–some that work and some that don’t.

First ‘nod’ in my manuscript. Page 12:

“Beth.” He gave a sharp nod and glanced at the chart in his hands, even though she was sure he’d already committed its details to memory.

I like this nod as it characterizes this uptight doctor. It can stay.

Second instance. Also page 12:

After a brief silence, he asked, “Are you doing okay?”
Beth nodded numbly. What else was could she do? Fall into the perfect doctor’s arms and cry so hard, snot flew from her nostrils?

Okay, I think this one works too. Because she is distraught (fiance in a coma) and basically, doesn’t want to speak and is in shock.

Third instance. A page later:

“Oz’s father, Barney, was not as lucky as Oz.”
Beth nodded and blinked.
“He didn’t survive his injuries from being thrown from the car. The medics were able to revive him on scene, but a heart rate could not be sustained.”

Would she really nod? Probably not. I cut a whole bunch of ‘reaction’ out of here, leaving the blinkin and noddin. (Winkin was cut, in case you were wondering what happened to him.) Looking at this snippet, I think it would flow better without anything from her. Just him talking.

A random instance:

She paused to glare at Katie. “Are you trying to get my goat?”
Katie laughed and nodded. “A little.”

Does she really need to nod here? No. A laugh combined with her words gives us what we need to know–she’s copping up to teasing the lady.

Here’s an example of a nod where one woman is encouraging the other to keep speaking:

Katie leaned forward and spoke softly, “I’ve changed my mind about getting married.”
Mrs. Wilkinson nodded, her eyes bright.
“I know Will’s going to propose. And it’s all good.”

The nod can stay.

And here is one that could be switched for a better action:

“Will you do it?” Katie asked.
“Of course, I will. So tell us, was it cheesy?” She nodded towards the oak. “Gran said you had worries.”

Is she really nodding to the tree, or is she tilting her head towards the tree, or gesturing to the tree with her chin? Probably the latter. It takes more words, but creates a better picture.

How many nods do you have? Do you fall back on certain gestures? (My characters used to ‘look’ everywhere and at everyone.)

UPDATE: I went through looking for ‘nod’s and removed over 20 of them. I doubt they will be missed.

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Update 8

Okay, so someday I will be done this. Really. I’m just slow because I am analyzing each and every word. And today, I blasted 870 of them away. Gone.

I started at 103,669 and now find myself at 97,091. Not bad, eh? Who says you can’t trim that manuscript down with a chainsaw? I mean, uh, keyboard? And I am halfway through. It’s only taken me two weeks. (I only worked 9 of the 14 days though, does that make it seem better?) Yes, I might be slow, but it will pay off. It will. It will.

(And yes, I feel a bit ridiculous posting update 8. But a promise is a promise. I said I’d do daily updates (didn’t I?) and so here I am, keeping my word…even if it takes me 20 updates to get to the post where I say, “I’m DONE!”)

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Update 7

My goodness, how many updates are there going to be?

Today, I beat the word count yo-yo and have snitched this baby down to 98, 070 words. I never thought it would be possible. And I’m not even half way through. What am I down? 5000 crazy words or something like that? Wow.

If you’ve been disbelieving about your word count, go take out everything ‘that goes without saying’ and see where you end up. Hopefully with a nice, tight story.