One of the reasons that I decided to start this blog was as a form of practice for writing. It is easy to get into the mindset that what you are writing is important and should be your best work - and I can see reasons for striving for that, but most of the time what you write won't be your best work and frankly won't be that important. But if you don't do the work of writing that is either unimportant or your best work it is unlikely that you'll ever arrive at your best work.
Putting in time in front of my notebook or in front of the computer can be difficult. You want to write when inspiration is hitting you hard and it is easy for the words to come out of you, but more often than not when you first sit down that isn't the case. I used to often sit down and stare at the blank page willing something great to come out of me. Once I realized that I didn't need to let greatness always be escaping my brain it got easier to start, but not always. I'd still have days where I just wasn't ready to write when I sat down. And if I don't have time scheduled to write than I'm probably not going to get there. I only have so much time in the day and so I need to not only schedule my time to write, but also to make it is as productive as possible. So what to do?
Warm-Up Exercises
One of the ideas that hit me was that in most things I do there is a small period of warm-up where I am not actually in the process of working yet but I am getting there. In sports or exercise, I usually have a pretty clear warm-up routine I don't want to start off with cold muscles because I know I won't get the best performance. It is also a way to get my brain cued into the space I want to be in to perform those actions.
But writing feels different. I mean how do you warm up for writing? Well, I guess in the same way you would for sports, by doing similar but scaled down versions of how you want to perform. Writing something that you either plan on deleting or that you aren't going to share with anyone (I prefer just filing it away because you can sometimes still get gems out of prewriting). I'm often not even prewriting about anything that I am planning on working on that day. Frequently I'll just start off with a little bit of journaling and see where that will take me. But other times I'll need to a little more guidance in my prewriting and that's where I like to do some rough outlining. Where do I want this piece to go? What kinds of things do I want it to say?
But really the greatest part about this step is that it is just for you. This is where I like practicing intentional mistakes. I've realized that life as a perfectionist is a lie - nothing is perfect so I shouldn't pretend that I'm striving for that kind of work. This doesn't mean that I should produce low quality work, but only that high quality work and perfection are not the same thing. That is to say that I can produce high-quality work without worrying if it is perfect. Because it won't be perfect, there is no such thing. And so I practice not being perfect now. I'm not going to lie, it felt dumb and painful at first. I'd fill my daily planner out with different color pens - which I know sounds to some people like nothing at all, but was a big first step for me. And not a big step in that I was allowing more color into my life, but rather that I was going to be okay with things not being "just so".
I don't want to intentionally put mistakes into what I'm writing but I've also got to be okay with things not always being "perfect". There is always going to be more to correct, better ways to say things - and you can even go overboard and make stuff much worse with your editing. This is another wonderful thing about blogging. You've got to just put stuff up sometimes. It might have a few warts on it, but that's okay. You can't endlessly polish that turd.
So prewriting can help me develop that mindset - and after spending quite a bit of time developing these habits I find that I don't rely on them nearly as much. I sat down to write this piece and thought about doing some journaling but my journal is all the way... wait no it is right there next to my desk, I don't even have to move to grab it. Well, that's okay. I'll do some post-writing journaling I suppose - journaling is a habit that I am trying to develop a little bit more.
But I think it is also important to note that prewriting isn't the only thing that is important to making writing an easier practice to sink into. One of the most important things I've found is to make sure that my writing area is ready for me. If my desk is covered with papers and I can't easily get settled in that is a problem. I'm either going to get distracted by something I don't need to be doing right then or spend time cleaning up my writing station when I'm supposed to be writing.
I recently started the book Work Clean by Dan Charnas which is about the culinary term mise-en-place and how it can be applied to life outside the chef's kitchen. A quick idea of what mise-en-place is is simply gathering everything you need for what you are cooking that day and having it prepared and ready to go when you need it. Of course, that doesn't do it justice, but there is an entire book dedicated to the idea so I don't one sentence will ever get the entirety across. But this is a great idea for when you are getting yourself ready to write. Is the area you going to write clean and clear of distractions? Are you going to listen to music? Do you know what music? Do you have headphones? Do you have any references you are going to need? Is your cellphone set to do-not-disturb? Do you have water or snacks you want to have while you are working? This list goes on. But coming into a writing session prepared is going to make life so much easier than having to get up 20 times because you want to grab your headphones but the ones you like are across the room.
Mise-en-place also pairs well with another idea I've come across called Clear to Neutral. In fact, if I remember correctly clear to neutral was inspired by the culinary world as well so it may come from the idea of mise-en-place. The idea behind clear to neutral is that you want your work station to be ready when you come to work at it so you clear it to a basic state where you won't be distracted beforehand, like cleaning off a cutting board. For me, it just means doing the prep work well ahead of time. It is something that I'm still working on as I often let my desk accumulate things that simply don't need to be there, but don't really have any other place to go.
There are a lot of things that you can do for your writing practice, but for me the most important things I've found are scheduling the time to write and then being prepared to use that time so that you don't squander it.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Friday, January 4, 2019
2018 Reading List
I'm sitting at 35 books read for the year (25 fiction and 10 non-fiction), with a few more that I am currently working on - and a few that I started but put down and don't plan to pick back up.
On the fiction side of things I'm currently working on Master and Commander - and on the non-fiction side of things I've got a pile on my desk and a few other audiobooks to listen to.
And speaking of audiobooks, this list contains all the audiobooks I've listened even though I didn't really "read" those, to me it still counts - the thoughts and ideas from the book went into my head and I was able to then use those ideas. The actual act of looking at words and comprehending them isn't what is important to me when reading books - although, I often do enjoy when I can highlight and write down ideas, which isn't quite as easy with an audiobook.
(Spoilers in this review if you care)This is the first time I actually read all the way through Lord of the Flies despite having had to "read" it several times for school and writing at least one paper on it. It was interesting to go back and see what I missed. There were certain aspects that I definitely enjoyed, but I was also drawn by some of the inherent strangeness of the book. I found Simon to be one of the most interesting characters in the book and did not remember his death from my earlier "readings" although it certainly wasn't surprising. The more interesting part about his death is that in discussions about the book his death seems overlooked by Piggy's death. I'm not sure how I feel about the book after this reading and certainly think that group discussion of it could be interesting, but I don't think this is a great book for the grades that I read it in - maybe a senior level English class in High School. But certainly not Middle School like my first time into the book. I'll also note that the ending is incredibly abrupt and not very satisfying. The adults arrive and then that's it. Shrug.
The War of Art
This is a short book but definitely worth the read. I've probably gone through it three times this year and plan to re-read it at least once this year. The premise is simple, when doing creative work you face resistance to producing anything and it is your job to overcome resistance. Resistance comes in many forms but it is never insurmountable. Hobbyists are overcome, professionals show up. Everyday. I think this is a great book for inspiration although it also has to be taken with a grain of salt because it doesn't really allow for mitigating circumstances. I understand why, that weakens his arguments, but none the less we are unique and we need to take our approach to work in unique ways.
The P.R.I.M.E.R. Goal Setting Method
I'd give a quick overview of the PRIMER method, but it is very complicated. I can't even remember what all the letters of PRIMER stand for. That is probably one of the weakest pieces of this book. It slightly overcomplicates things and gets bogged down in details that might be better to just skip over. I do, however, think that his goal setting method is sound. I began work on a worksheet for the PRIMER method but never finished so maybe that is something I'll pick up again this year.
The Miracle Morning
This is a very inspiring book, however, it completely downplays the importance of sleep. The author even goes so far as questioning how much sleep we really need. We need at least 7-8 hours. You can get by with less but eventually, that deficit is going to catch up to you. But there are still some good takeaways from this book. The Miracle Morning acronym is a little easier to remember, SAVERS - Silence (Meditation), Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing (journalling). Yes, the author took some liberty to make the acronym work, but it's fine, it is easy enough to remember. The book prescribes getting up an hour early to perform all these activities for 10 minutes a piece (or however long you want to divvy up the time between them). It was a great takeaway for me that I can just do a little bit and I don't have to be crazy about my daily time allowance for personal development. Ten minutes of reading is better than zero. I also had a better understanding of the importance of visualization and while not directly stated it made me realize that visualization is a great tool for figuring out what you really want, because before you visualize you have to know what you are going to visualize.
Principles
I kept getting ads for this one on my Kindle with recommendation quotes from Bill Gates. Eventually, I caved to the ads (or maybe I got another recommendation from a podcast) and was quite pleased with this book. So much so that I bought a physical copy after listening to the audiobook. Ray Dalio does a great job laying out the principles that he lives by and runs his company by, why they are important, and also why it is important to write down your principles. One thing I hope to eventually do with this blog is layout my own principles.
The ONE Thing
What's the one thing that you can do, such by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? That is the whole premise of the book and what they call the focusing question. It is a great way to look at prioritization and a helpful question to ask yourself at the beginning of the day, or really any planning session. I will note that things usually are never quite as simple as one thing that will make everything in your life easier, but if you limit it to the one thing that will make your business better, your relationship stronger, etc... it becomes easier and clearer to answer.
Atomic Habits
Great book about habits. I'm not sure if it introduced any concepts that I haven't seen elsewhere, but it certainly did a good job of combining a lot of ideas in different ways than I've seen before. That might sound like a dig, but I actually think that is an incredibly important thing to do with new books and ideas. Just because I've seen something before doesn't mean that it has clicked with me, but introducing an idea in a different way or combining it with other ideas might make it actually stick in my brain. The basic premise of the book is that the real things that effect change in your life are the tiny habits you do every day - yes, I've seen that before - and then goes into detail on what effects those habits and how you can make those habits work for you.
Deep Work
I'd heard a lot about Cal Newport and some of his ideas before this and so I decided this could be an interesting book to pick up. The basic concept that you can get from this book is that time blocking is important (although I don't recall if Newport calls it that) because only after dedicated work to something for a prolonged period of time can you get into deep work. Newport defines deep work as the important work that only you can do and spends sometime differentiating it from light work, which basically the surface level stuff that you can do quickly but doesn't create any real substance. The importance of his writing on light work is that he lumps all of social media in there and uses that as an argument for staying off those platforms. I certainly think that we could all use a little less social media, but I'm not sure I'm on board with Newport's views on it. Social media is a tool and yes it is easy to misuse but there are also benefits to reap from it. Overall I am onboard with embracing more deep work and producing higher quality content and that is something that I'm trying to include more in my life.
Extreme Ownership
I heard a few interviews with Jocko Willink (note, this book was co-written with Leif Babin) through various podcasts and decided that I'd like to dive into his work a little more. I was fairly pleased with this book, although I still have some qualms with the military complex - ignoring that facet of Jocko we can still get a lot out of this book. The premise is that only you are responsible for what is going on around you and you need to take ownership of what you want to happen in your life/business. I think this is a pretty good approach to things because it makes you focus on solutions rather than casting blame. Yes, things can go wrong because of the actions of others, but what can you do to fix them? What can you do to bring about success? The book is about defining what you can do to create success while also empowering others to also create success. It should be noted that the authors really believe in teamwork (and coming from the SEAL teams that totally makes sense), but that can be lost with the idea that you are responsible for everything. The Jocko and Leif acknowledge this in a chapter called the Directory of Leadership, but apparently, that wasn't enough so they have written a second book by the same name that I've started but haven't finished yet.
Rising Strong
Brené Brown has quickly become one of my favorite authors because she speaks simple truths that resonate quite well with me. While a lot of the ideas presented are simple to digest they certainly are not always easy to implement. And just because they are simple does not mean they are obvious or unimportant. I think my biggest and most important takeaway from this book was about setting expectations. For me, this has come in the form of what I expect to get done when my kids are around. I shouldn't expect to be getting things done when I'm also doing things with the kids, but maybe I decide I want to write something, do a little email or maybe do some cleaning while watching the kids. But this is often a recipe for disaster because once I go down the rabbit hole of trying to be productive while also trying to parent I can (and often do) become an asshole. It is frustrating to try and get something done and simply be unable to. For me this just means changing what I expect I can get done when I'm watching the kids - now it means I'm more focused on them and less on the other things I want to get done. It also means understanding that I'm not really going to get any work done on weekends. That isn't time for me, that's time for my kids. If I want time for myself I have to carve it out with a discussion with my wife, I can't just make it appear.
But really that takeaway isn't the main idea of the book. Rising Strong is about coming back from failure and coming back stronger. It is about learning from your mistakes and accepting that you are going to make mistakes. There is a lot to unpack in this book and it would probably do me some good to put in another reading of it.
The ADHD Advantage
Well, my non-fiction list is certainly out of order because I believe this was one of the first books I read in 2018. I'm not sure that I have a lot to say about this book. It talks a lot about the overmedication of ADHD meds - which is an argument that has merits, but also isn't always that helpful because ADHD meds are also great for those of us who need them. The main takeaway from this book is that certain traits of ADHD can be used to your advantage and make you a better person. And I agree with that mentality a lot, however, I just didn't feel like I got a lot out of this book. Shrug.
On the fiction side of things I'm currently working on Master and Commander - and on the non-fiction side of things I've got a pile on my desk and a few other audiobooks to listen to.
And speaking of audiobooks, this list contains all the audiobooks I've listened even though I didn't really "read" those, to me it still counts - the thoughts and ideas from the book went into my head and I was able to then use those ideas. The actual act of looking at words and comprehending them isn't what is important to me when reading books - although, I often do enjoy when I can highlight and write down ideas, which isn't quite as easy with an audiobook.
Books of 2018
Fiction
Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archives
Iron Gold: Book 4 of the Red Rising Saga
Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse Book 3)
The Allow of Law: A Mistborn Novel
Children of Time
Shadow of Self: A Mistborn Novel
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)
The Bands of Mourning: A Mistborn Novel
Lord of the Flies
Renegades
Myth Conceptions (Myth-Adventures Book 2)
Myth Directions (Myth-Adventures Book 3)
Hit of Myth (Myth-Adventures Book 4)
Myth-ing Persons (Myth-Adventures Book 5)
Little Myth Maker (Myth-Adventures Book 6)
Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervevtions (Myth-Adventures Book 7)
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1)
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries
Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries
Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries
Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries
City of Bones
Archenemies
Artemis
Non-Fiction
The War of Art
The P.R.I.M.E.R. Goal Setting Method
The Miracle Morning
Principles*
The ONE Thing*
Atomic Habits*
Deep Work*
Extreme Ownership*
Rising Strong*
The ADHD Advantage*
*Read through audiobooks
Reviews
Oathbringer (Stormlight Archives Book 3)
The thing about the Stormlight Archives is that is incredibly long. On a podcast that I heard with Brandon Sanderson, he mentioned that for each of the SA books he essentially writes three books and then smooshes them together with some short stories. This one comes in at 1220 pages - for comparison I looked up War and Peace (which always comes to mind when I think of really long books) and it is 1296 pages (at least the version that came up first on Amazon). Anyways, there is a lot more to this book other than just being really long. I don't want to say too much as it the third book in the series, but it was definitely worth the read. Sanderson really fleshes out some of the characters and some of the backstory makes you question how you view some of the characters. Vague, I know. I also really appreciated some of the philosophy that surrounded Dalinar's character and I ended up with a quote from him on my whiteboard for a quite a while this year.
Iron Gold (Red Rising Book 4)
Ah, the Red Rising Saga. I had the first Red Rising book recommended to me last year when I went looking for recommendations on Facebook for new fiction. After reading for about an hour I was wondering if I should question my friendship with this person. The first part of the first book is awful, I just could not relate to the character nor did it draw me into the book at all. The books are in first-person and that is always hit or miss - but once the books introduced themselves as the Hunger Games in space things settled down into a damn good series (I forget what their space lingo would be for this). I quickly read the first 3 books and was really looking forward to the fourth book so I grabbed it as soon as it was released. This book was also a little hard to get into because it introduced a new quirk to the book, it switches narrators - but it also is completely in the first person. I did not really appreciate that at first, but I got used to it and ended up enjoying Iron Gold and am looking forward to the next book in the series.
Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse Book 3)
I've kind of got a love-hate relationship going with the Expanse Series. I was disappointed to see that the TV series was canceled because it really is an interesting look at what near-space life might look like. The third book certainly takes us to a lot of new places and more interesting characters. I think my biggest problem with the series is that the main character, James Holden, kind of sucks. If I'm remembering correctly in the first novel I hated him because he was trying to hard to be noble - which was also hilarious when in the TV series he came across as a completely selfish jerk... which he kind of morphed into in the novels as well. Anyways, one of my favorite things about reading the novels is that for whatever reason the pilot, Alex, is portrayed by Jason Mantzoukas in my head, which is always hilarious.
The Allow of Law, Shadow of Self and The Bands of Mourning
I was pretty excited to jump back into the Mistborn world and I really enjoyed coming back to a world so much later in its history. Part of me wanted a refresher on the first books since they were the basis for the lore of these books - which was also an interesting Sanderson stroke since he took into account the rewriting of history and how lore grows, so the lore that these books referenced wasn't always what really happened. Overall I really enjoyed the characters, although I would have liked less time in things from Wayne's perspective. I enjoyed him as a character, but not as my narrator.
Children of Time
One of my favorite books of 2018, although definitely not for everyone. The book takes place with two main camps over the course of thousands of years (tens of thousands? hundreds? I don't really remember the time frame, just that it was over a long, long time). One camp is humans trying to settle onto a new planet after Earth is no longer habitable and their story is told from the perspective of a twat that keeps coming out of sleep stasis. He really wasn't that interesting of a character - in fact, the human side of the story is the weaker side of the novel. The other side of the novel is what made me fall in love with it, although not at first. The other camp that the novel follows is that of hyperintelligent spiders. Since the novel takes place over thousands of years you get to see their society evolve and you roughly get to follow the same characters who are just further down the line of the main characters. I really enjoyed thinking about how life would have evolved differently if some basic things about us were different. How would technology evolve differently if we had eight legs instead of two or if our communication wasn't verbal? It was a great way for me to think differently and I really enjoyed it and I was surprised that I was satisfied by the ending (which leading up to it I did not think would happen).
The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards Book 1)
One of the reasons I was most hesitant to pick up this book was because of the name of the series, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt because sometimes series names are publisher decisions and not on the author. But that doesn't seem to be the case as that is the name the characters use for themselves in the book. Whomp whomp. This was another book I had a bit of trouble getting into and it was mainly because the author kept changing what part of the timeline he was writing all the time, except that he'd be telling the same story from different points in the story. This is a great storytelling technique, but at the beginning of the book, it just made things confusing because I couldn't figure out why he was doing it. I don't think it really enhanced that part of the story at all. Later in the book, it felt a lot more natural and enhanced the story. Overall I'd say I enjoyed the book although it felt like the author was killing off some of the characters for no reason or perhaps rather I'd just have preferred that he hadn't killed off some of the characters. Halfway through the book, I was just like, well that's a shitty way for things to have gone. And I think a big part of that was because the main characters were being forced to do things so they weren't moving the plot forward on their own. Once the main characters took back control of the plot the novel took off again. I'm not sure if I'm going to revisit this series for the next two books, but I'll certainly keep them in mind for a rainy day.
Storm Front (The Dresden Files Book 1)
The Dresden Files have been on my to-read list for a while and I think this is the only book that I'm going to be reading from them. While the writing was good enough the character was incredibly dated and ran with an old-school sexism that rubbed me the wrong way. By the end of the book, I was just looking to finish it off and so it isn't something that I am going to recommend.
The Dresden Files have been on my to-read list for a while and I think this is the only book that I'm going to be reading from them. While the writing was good enough the character was incredibly dated and ran with an old-school sexism that rubbed me the wrong way. By the end of the book, I was just looking to finish it off and so it isn't something that I am going to recommend.
Lord of the Flies
(Spoilers in this review if you care)This is the first time I actually read all the way through Lord of the Flies despite having had to "read" it several times for school and writing at least one paper on it. It was interesting to go back and see what I missed. There were certain aspects that I definitely enjoyed, but I was also drawn by some of the inherent strangeness of the book. I found Simon to be one of the most interesting characters in the book and did not remember his death from my earlier "readings" although it certainly wasn't surprising. The more interesting part about his death is that in discussions about the book his death seems overlooked by Piggy's death. I'm not sure how I feel about the book after this reading and certainly think that group discussion of it could be interesting, but I don't think this is a great book for the grades that I read it in - maybe a senior level English class in High School. But certainly not Middle School like my first time into the book. I'll also note that the ending is incredibly abrupt and not very satisfying. The adults arrive and then that's it. Shrug.
Renegades and Archenemies
I'll be pretty honest about why I picked this book up. The main character in this novel is named Nova and my daughter's name is Nova. Also, it is a superhero story and one of Nova's powers is that she never sleeps and one of my daughter's nicknames is No-Nap Nova. The premise made me laugh and I thought it might be fun. It turned out that Renegades was one of my favorite books I read over the summer. It was a light and easy book with some fun superhero action and some unique superpowers. In Archenemies, they dive further into what it means to be good or evil and what the consequences of having superheroes in the world does. I'm looking forward to seeing how the next book unfolds and resolves some of the plot twists from Archenemies.
I'll be pretty honest about why I picked this book up. The main character in this novel is named Nova and my daughter's name is Nova. Also, it is a superhero story and one of Nova's powers is that she never sleeps and one of my daughter's nicknames is No-Nap Nova. The premise made me laugh and I thought it might be fun. It turned out that Renegades was one of my favorite books I read over the summer. It was a light and easy book with some fun superhero action and some unique superpowers. In Archenemies, they dive further into what it means to be good or evil and what the consequences of having superheroes in the world does. I'm looking forward to seeing how the next book unfolds and resolves some of the plot twists from Archenemies.
Myth-Adventures Books 2-7
These were really a re-reading for me and I'll be honest they also have not aged that well. While earlier I mentioned that the sexism in the Dresden Files bugged me, in the Myth books the dated language got a little more of a pass from me, most likely due to nostalgia. These are not deep books and I was finishing one every 2-3 days. But sometimes you need some light and easy reading. I did get part way through the 8th book, but they switch the character perspective and I just kind of lost interest. I also remember that at the end of that book they kind of just resolve it by saying everything is honky-dory and it was a big misunderstanding so there's that too.
These were really a re-reading for me and I'll be honest they also have not aged that well. While earlier I mentioned that the sexism in the Dresden Files bugged me, in the Myth books the dated language got a little more of a pass from me, most likely due to nostalgia. These are not deep books and I was finishing one every 2-3 days. But sometimes you need some light and easy reading. I did get part way through the 8th book, but they switch the character perspective and I just kind of lost interest. I also remember that at the end of that book they kind of just resolve it by saying everything is honky-dory and it was a big misunderstanding so there's that too.
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1)
This had great reviews on Amazon and won the 2016 Hugo award so I decided to give it a chance despite hearing that it begins in 2nd person. I can be a little snobby about point-of-view sometimes and usually prefer books in 3rd person to 1st person and I couldn't really believe that 2nd person would work at all - but again, Hugo award. Well, I was wrong about it just starting in 2nd person - it switches character viewpoints across three characters, weaving their stories together quite well by the end, but one of the characters is always in 2nd person (this carries over into the next book, which I have started, but not finished). By the end of the book I got over the 2nd person - and in fact, I think the author got much better at writing it by that point where it didn't feel so awkward. Overall I found this to be a pretty interesting book, if a little dark. I'm interested in where the series is going and hopefully will be able to get myself in a place where I can pick the second book back up again.
This had great reviews on Amazon and won the 2016 Hugo award so I decided to give it a chance despite hearing that it begins in 2nd person. I can be a little snobby about point-of-view sometimes and usually prefer books in 3rd person to 1st person and I couldn't really believe that 2nd person would work at all - but again, Hugo award. Well, I was wrong about it just starting in 2nd person - it switches character viewpoints across three characters, weaving their stories together quite well by the end, but one of the characters is always in 2nd person (this carries over into the next book, which I have started, but not finished). By the end of the book I got over the 2nd person - and in fact, I think the author got much better at writing it by that point where it didn't feel so awkward. Overall I found this to be a pretty interesting book, if a little dark. I'm interested in where the series is going and hopefully will be able to get myself in a place where I can pick the second book back up again.
The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy
Oh Murderbot, you rascal. This was a series that was recommended to me by my brother and one that I had seen before but was reluctant to pick up because of the title. I'm glad I picked it up and am kind of sad that I was able to blaze through the series so quickly. I'd probably read another dozen of these books if they were out. The premise of the book is that the main character is an android or rather Security Unit - basically, an artificial being that serves as a securityrobot unit that has a human brain so that it can access situations better than just a robot could. He is rented out to be security for various contracts by the Company (I was a little put off that the company never got a name through four books). But the twist is that he it has hacked its governer module that makes him to what human's tell him what to do? So what does the Murderbot want to do with the power to ignore orders? Kill all humans? No, it wants to watch soap opera's and be left alone. Things are never that easy though and so amusement follows (I was going to say hilarity, but it also isn't a super funny series although it does have funny moments). Overall it was a really fun series to read and I'd recommend it to anyone that enjoys sci-fi.
Oh Murderbot, you rascal. This was a series that was recommended to me by my brother and one that I had seen before but was reluctant to pick up because of the title. I'm glad I picked it up and am kind of sad that I was able to blaze through the series so quickly. I'd probably read another dozen of these books if they were out. The premise of the book is that the main character is an android or rather Security Unit - basically, an artificial being that serves as a security
City of Bones
As I said above, if there were more Murderbot novels I'd have read more of them. Instead, I grabbed another book by the same author (Martha Wells). While the Murderbot Diaries were all short books, this was about the length of all four those put together. And instead of being in a sci-fi setting the book takes place in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. I haven't read too much post-apocalyptic fantasy, but this seemed to do the trick pretty well. Despite not having much interest in the main character at the beginning of the novel I found myself rather attached by the end. Certainly not as good as Murderbot, but it was a fine addition to my reading list for the year and if there was a follow-up book to this one I'd probably read it.
As I said above, if there were more Murderbot novels I'd have read more of them. Instead, I grabbed another book by the same author (Martha Wells). While the Murderbot Diaries were all short books, this was about the length of all four those put together. And instead of being in a sci-fi setting the book takes place in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. I haven't read too much post-apocalyptic fantasy, but this seemed to do the trick pretty well. Despite not having much interest in the main character at the beginning of the novel I found myself rather attached by the end. Certainly not as good as Murderbot, but it was a fine addition to my reading list for the year and if there was a follow-up book to this one I'd probably read it.
Artemis
The last full book of the year for me. I'm surprised I didn't pick this one up earlier because Andy Weir's other novel, The Martian, is definitely in my top 10 books of all time. I'm not even sure what I'd put above the Martian - but this is about Artemis. In this book, we follow a protagonist on the moon named Jazz. I'll be honest I'm not crazy about that name (no, not even jazzed about it), but I got over it and it was fine (I can also be snobby about character names in books too). So more of a sci-fi take on things since a permanent moon base seems farther off than a science mission to Mars. But also not super sci-fi since there isn't really any technology that doesn't exist (or could potentially exist soon). So just futurist maybe? Anyways, my hesitance on picking up this book were all the reviews that clearly stated that this was not the Martian. And it wasn't. It wasn't meant to be and I can appreciate that. I think the writing in this one wasn't quite as crisp as it was in the Martain, but the story was still interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. It was a good book for my final novel of the year and I look forward to what else we might see from Andy Weir.
The last full book of the year for me. I'm surprised I didn't pick this one up earlier because Andy Weir's other novel, The Martian, is definitely in my top 10 books of all time. I'm not even sure what I'd put above the Martian - but this is about Artemis. In this book, we follow a protagonist on the moon named Jazz. I'll be honest I'm not crazy about that name (no, not even jazzed about it), but I got over it and it was fine (I can also be snobby about character names in books too). So more of a sci-fi take on things since a permanent moon base seems farther off than a science mission to Mars. But also not super sci-fi since there isn't really any technology that doesn't exist (or could potentially exist soon). So just futurist maybe? Anyways, my hesitance on picking up this book were all the reviews that clearly stated that this was not the Martian. And it wasn't. It wasn't meant to be and I can appreciate that. I think the writing in this one wasn't quite as crisp as it was in the Martain, but the story was still interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. It was a good book for my final novel of the year and I look forward to what else we might see from Andy Weir.
Non-fiction
The War of Art
This is a short book but definitely worth the read. I've probably gone through it three times this year and plan to re-read it at least once this year. The premise is simple, when doing creative work you face resistance to producing anything and it is your job to overcome resistance. Resistance comes in many forms but it is never insurmountable. Hobbyists are overcome, professionals show up. Everyday. I think this is a great book for inspiration although it also has to be taken with a grain of salt because it doesn't really allow for mitigating circumstances. I understand why, that weakens his arguments, but none the less we are unique and we need to take our approach to work in unique ways.
The P.R.I.M.E.R. Goal Setting Method
I'd give a quick overview of the PRIMER method, but it is very complicated. I can't even remember what all the letters of PRIMER stand for. That is probably one of the weakest pieces of this book. It slightly overcomplicates things and gets bogged down in details that might be better to just skip over. I do, however, think that his goal setting method is sound. I began work on a worksheet for the PRIMER method but never finished so maybe that is something I'll pick up again this year.
The Miracle Morning
This is a very inspiring book, however, it completely downplays the importance of sleep. The author even goes so far as questioning how much sleep we really need. We need at least 7-8 hours. You can get by with less but eventually, that deficit is going to catch up to you. But there are still some good takeaways from this book. The Miracle Morning acronym is a little easier to remember, SAVERS - Silence (Meditation), Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing (journalling). Yes, the author took some liberty to make the acronym work, but it's fine, it is easy enough to remember. The book prescribes getting up an hour early to perform all these activities for 10 minutes a piece (or however long you want to divvy up the time between them). It was a great takeaway for me that I can just do a little bit and I don't have to be crazy about my daily time allowance for personal development. Ten minutes of reading is better than zero. I also had a better understanding of the importance of visualization and while not directly stated it made me realize that visualization is a great tool for figuring out what you really want, because before you visualize you have to know what you are going to visualize.
Principles
I kept getting ads for this one on my Kindle with recommendation quotes from Bill Gates. Eventually, I caved to the ads (or maybe I got another recommendation from a podcast) and was quite pleased with this book. So much so that I bought a physical copy after listening to the audiobook. Ray Dalio does a great job laying out the principles that he lives by and runs his company by, why they are important, and also why it is important to write down your principles. One thing I hope to eventually do with this blog is layout my own principles.
The ONE Thing
What's the one thing that you can do, such by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? That is the whole premise of the book and what they call the focusing question. It is a great way to look at prioritization and a helpful question to ask yourself at the beginning of the day, or really any planning session. I will note that things usually are never quite as simple as one thing that will make everything in your life easier, but if you limit it to the one thing that will make your business better, your relationship stronger, etc... it becomes easier and clearer to answer.
Atomic Habits
Great book about habits. I'm not sure if it introduced any concepts that I haven't seen elsewhere, but it certainly did a good job of combining a lot of ideas in different ways than I've seen before. That might sound like a dig, but I actually think that is an incredibly important thing to do with new books and ideas. Just because I've seen something before doesn't mean that it has clicked with me, but introducing an idea in a different way or combining it with other ideas might make it actually stick in my brain. The basic premise of the book is that the real things that effect change in your life are the tiny habits you do every day - yes, I've seen that before - and then goes into detail on what effects those habits and how you can make those habits work for you.
Deep Work
I'd heard a lot about Cal Newport and some of his ideas before this and so I decided this could be an interesting book to pick up. The basic concept that you can get from this book is that time blocking is important (although I don't recall if Newport calls it that) because only after dedicated work to something for a prolonged period of time can you get into deep work. Newport defines deep work as the important work that only you can do and spends sometime differentiating it from light work, which basically the surface level stuff that you can do quickly but doesn't create any real substance. The importance of his writing on light work is that he lumps all of social media in there and uses that as an argument for staying off those platforms. I certainly think that we could all use a little less social media, but I'm not sure I'm on board with Newport's views on it. Social media is a tool and yes it is easy to misuse but there are also benefits to reap from it. Overall I am onboard with embracing more deep work and producing higher quality content and that is something that I'm trying to include more in my life.
Extreme Ownership
I heard a few interviews with Jocko Willink (note, this book was co-written with Leif Babin) through various podcasts and decided that I'd like to dive into his work a little more. I was fairly pleased with this book, although I still have some qualms with the military complex - ignoring that facet of Jocko we can still get a lot out of this book. The premise is that only you are responsible for what is going on around you and you need to take ownership of what you want to happen in your life/business. I think this is a pretty good approach to things because it makes you focus on solutions rather than casting blame. Yes, things can go wrong because of the actions of others, but what can you do to fix them? What can you do to bring about success? The book is about defining what you can do to create success while also empowering others to also create success. It should be noted that the authors really believe in teamwork (and coming from the SEAL teams that totally makes sense), but that can be lost with the idea that you are responsible for everything. The Jocko and Leif acknowledge this in a chapter called the Directory of Leadership, but apparently, that wasn't enough so they have written a second book by the same name that I've started but haven't finished yet.
Rising Strong
Brené Brown has quickly become one of my favorite authors because she speaks simple truths that resonate quite well with me. While a lot of the ideas presented are simple to digest they certainly are not always easy to implement. And just because they are simple does not mean they are obvious or unimportant. I think my biggest and most important takeaway from this book was about setting expectations. For me, this has come in the form of what I expect to get done when my kids are around. I shouldn't expect to be getting things done when I'm also doing things with the kids, but maybe I decide I want to write something, do a little email or maybe do some cleaning while watching the kids. But this is often a recipe for disaster because once I go down the rabbit hole of trying to be productive while also trying to parent I can (and often do) become an asshole. It is frustrating to try and get something done and simply be unable to. For me this just means changing what I expect I can get done when I'm watching the kids - now it means I'm more focused on them and less on the other things I want to get done. It also means understanding that I'm not really going to get any work done on weekends. That isn't time for me, that's time for my kids. If I want time for myself I have to carve it out with a discussion with my wife, I can't just make it appear.
But really that takeaway isn't the main idea of the book. Rising Strong is about coming back from failure and coming back stronger. It is about learning from your mistakes and accepting that you are going to make mistakes. There is a lot to unpack in this book and it would probably do me some good to put in another reading of it.
The ADHD Advantage
Well, my non-fiction list is certainly out of order because I believe this was one of the first books I read in 2018. I'm not sure that I have a lot to say about this book. It talks a lot about the overmedication of ADHD meds - which is an argument that has merits, but also isn't always that helpful because ADHD meds are also great for those of us who need them. The main takeaway from this book is that certain traits of ADHD can be used to your advantage and make you a better person. And I agree with that mentality a lot, however, I just didn't feel like I got a lot out of this book. Shrug.
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