Recently went to my local store and somehow managed to make it out without buying the entire store. Have you bought any new books recently?
Tag: Johnny Reads
Dr. Fauci to be featured in children’s book!
It was announced last week that real life superhero Dr. Fauci will be featured in a forthcoming children’s book to be released this summer, and I’m here for it!
What are your thoughts?
Call me Unimpressed
EL James is best known for her Fifty Shades trilogy. It ended several years ago. More recently, she has published (and will be soon) the same stories from Christian Grey’s perspective.
We all know about the nature of capitalizing on successful franchises is to keep them going or relevant as long as possible to keep the dollars coming in. But this just comes across as lazy and lacks creativity. Maybe I’m in the minority here. Her name is more than enough to make an instant bestseller, so why not write something completely new?
Do we need more Harry Potter content?
I love most things Potter. But I swear it is almost a daily occurrence recently to wake up and read about a remake or a spin-off or SOMETHING. Do we need any of it? What do you think? My thoughts:
E-books vs print: Maybe I’ve been wrong about e-books?
Within the last few months I’ve dipped my toe into e-books. This wasn’t the first time, but it happened quite a bit all at once and it got me thinking. Have I been wrong to not read e-books? Watch and see.
Where do you stand?
Help me Name a Character
Back in October when I first returned to the blog I wrote about wanting to write again. I’ve been thinking about it these last 3 months, but still no planning or outlining. There’s no rush. More recently I’ve been thinking much more about the character I want to create.
I know no one has been here since the beginning, but when I first decided to start this blog it was called “Write me a Book, John!”. I still love that name. I created it to document my writing. It was a new, fun experience I’m glad I had. Then the blog went through multiple years of rather exponential growth. I couldn’t keep up with the comments and likes and notifications. But then things fell back to earth because I’ve had several periods of not posting. But now I’m back into the swing of things and let’s get back to the origins.
I’ve been brainstorming character names. I know everyone has their own process and some may search for specific meaning in a name. I don’t. When coming up with a name I mostly go off the sound of it. Which is how I landed on Andrew Banks nearly 8 years ago. Right now I know 2 things for sure. I want the name to be Hispanic and male. The one I keep circling back to is Joe Alvarez. But I’m not convinced. What do you think? What’s your process for coming up with a name?
Mickey Haller is Coming to Netflix!
Yes! I hate when characters get caught up in the abyss of adaptations and rights are purchased and then nothing happens. For any fellow Michael Connelly fans, you probably know this is what happened in the early days of Harry Bosch. Then Michael Connelly spent years fighting to get the rights back. Ultimately, Amazon’s Bosch was created and so well done.
Something similar almost happened with Mickey Haller, Harry Bosch’s half-brother who works out of his Lincoln. The defense attorney who rarely comes across a case he won’t take. Most have probably seen The Lincoln Lawyer adaptation. It was okay. Nothing great, and not surprising that it didn’t spawn a series of movies. Later, CBS bought the rights to pursue a series, which went nowhere. Seems unlikely Netflix won’t finally adapt the smart talking defense attorney into a worthy series.
Mickey Haller isn’t my favorite character created, but he’s rather enjoyable. Have you read any of his books by Michael Connelly?
Book Buying Tip: STOP Going to Barnes and Noble!
On my birthday last month I ventured into my local BN store for the first time. This was the first time I’d been into any BN store in nearly 4 years. Suffice it to say I was not impressed. Watch and tell me your thoughts!
Slowing Down
If you read this blog you probably know I read quite a bit to finish off 2020. Mostly because I was set on reaching my reading goal for the first time. In December I was reading 3-4 hours on some nights to keep my momentum going.
Now it seems I’m still in that mode to read as much as possible. These last few days I’ve found myself debating whether to read another hour before bed. Often this is between 1:00-2:00AM. There’s nothing wrong with doing so, but there are 52 weeks this year. Plenty of time to continue a solid reading pace without falling asleep with my current book.
I may start to take a day off here and there. In 8 months if I’m behind schedule, then I’ll shift into high gear.
Scheduled Reading
I’m trying something for the first time this year. Because I’ve still been bad about reading books I already own, I’ve decided to schedule which books I’m going to be reading throughout this year.
What I’ve done is I’ve examined my TBR shelf. Even after the 50 books I read last year I still have nearly 70 unread books. I learned the most common reason for me to constantly skip over a book is length. It’s the only reason, quite frankly. So I’m stuck with dozens of books 500-700 pages in length I can never bring myself to read. Until now.
I came up with a system. For every book I read over 450 pages, I’ll read two that are less than that. Because the alternative is leaving these on the TBR shelf in perpetuity. No one has time for that.
Is this something you’ve done before?
Johnny Reads 