Review: “Invisible Ink”

Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate
by Brian McDonald

Brian McDonald is “a sought after instructor and consultant, Brian has taught his story structure seminar at PIXAR, DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION and LUCASFILM’s ILM.”

I have studied songwriting, and my favorite text is “Nashville Songwriting” by Jerry Cupit. It is fabulous because it strips all the excess description and rules about writing a song and leaves simple tenets.

I’ve read only three books on writing recently, and all of them were great in their own way. But, if I could only take one of them to my desert island with my Farrah Fawcett poster, I would take “Invisible Ink”. I’m still digesting the content, but it has helped me finally grasp the theme of my current work in process. That is huge for me. So much to learn. I’m enjoying the journey. Hope you are enjoying your journey too.

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Ink-Practical-Building-Resonate/dp/0984178627

More WattPad Stuffs

I did a bit more personal looking around on WattPad. At first I was very freaked out by the sheer number of “books”. I was using my iPad which is one of the preferred interfaces. I looked at a number of book pages. The number of reads listed was staggering, one title had four million reads, many others with double digit thousand reads.

Here is where I started wondering. Each book page has “stars” and “comments”. However, you have to “start reading” to even reach the comments to read the feedback from ore readers. I couldn’t find anything that described what the stars meant. Oh, and by “start reading”, that is counted as a “read”. My rough conclusion is that there are questionable statistic.

Also, the books were mostly under 100 pages. Though one of Cory Doctorow’s books rang in at 143 pages, which doesn’t sound like a complete book. Though, their reading page on the iPad is large.

Yes, the reading interface is nice, and the type is easy to read. I could see myself starting a number of books that I would have no incentive to finish since I didn’t spend any money.

I’m still undecided. I’d like to better understand their stats. I seems clear that the books with 4 million reads do not translate to 4 million completed readings.

Book Review: Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)

I am posting my Goodreads review of Charles Yallowitz’ first book of the Legends of Windemere series.

I thoroughly enjoyed “Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)”. This fantasy action novel engaged me from the beginning of the book, and maintained great action scenes throughout. I didn’t do any reading skip-overs like I’ve done with other books, because the author provides good description without wordiness. I think adult and young adult readers will enjoy the book. I’m certainly interested in the next book. I appreciated the author creating a believable fantasy world, and delivering an epic action filled adventure.

I also enjoyed the characters and their personalities. I’m a former WoW player (got to level 70 and quit before WotLK). It felt like I was progressing through exciting quests, with unique and surprising battle scene elements.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes a fast paced and interesting fantasy action story, anyone who plays/played D&D, anyone who has played any RPG, LARPers, or anyone who wants an engaging fantasy action story. Windemere looks to be an interesting world. I look forward to all the adventures spawned from Windemere. 5 stars