Annalisa’s Top Book Picks

Annalisa’s Top Book Picks

by | Aug 26, 2020 | Books | 0 comments

Annalisa’s Top Book Picks 

 

If you’re writing, then you absolutely should be reading, and not just reading in your genre. You want to be reading widely.

And I practice what I preach.

For the writers over in the Writing Gym, we set goals and we put strategies in place to reach them.

Part of that should be your reading strategy. Because, of course, in order to be a good writer, you need to be reading.

Did I say that already? I think I did. I must mean it.

First, I wanted to share my top three nonfiction books. 

 

  • The Go-Giver Influencer by Bob Burg and John David Mann. 
    • My top pick. This book changed my life. It was exceptional. This is a book that I had to stop reading and think. So I read two pages and went, “Woah. That’s a big idea. I need to think through that.” There was a lot of journaling that happened. This book is about so much more than business, though it is also about business. This book is about how to live a quality life, how to problem solve, so that people can get along. And I think that this book is particularly important right now, right? We’re in a very contentious political situation. I’m not going to get into the details of that, but there are a lot of people who are having difficulty getting along with each other. If everybody read this book, maybe things would be a little bit better. I highly, highly, highly recommend this book.
  • How to Be Rich by J. Paul Getty. 
    • An oldie but a goodie. And let me tell you what I love about this book. First of all, great title. Don’t you want to know how to be rich? And it’s a misnomer. It’s a really good pitch. Although this book is about getting rich, it’s also really more sociological and philosophical. It’s  about the creation of wealth, the obligation that wealth creates, how we create jobs and share that wealth, and how we contribute to our culture patrimony through wealth to share that. Think Rockefeller. It’s a really really interesting book.
  • Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide, written by Brandon Webb and John David Mann.
    • Many of you have heard John David Mann on the Writing Gym podcast. He had some great thoughts to share on the writing of this book that he and John went through. Brandon and John put a really great book together. I particularly loved their philosophy on mastering fear. A lot of times, we talk about really mastering fear. And he really nips that myth in the bud through this book. We’ve all been afraid of something in our lives. Sometimes it’s big things. Sometimes fear really gets in the way of our dreams. I don’t want fear to get in the way of your dreams, your publishing dreams. 

Now, my favorite fiction picks.

 

  • Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. 
    • One of the things we talk about over in the Writing Gym a whole lot is how you integrate your literary devices to augment your theme and plot points. It’s really, really hard to do. And this book did it really well. Not only is it a good, interesting, character-driven story, but the pacing is amazing. She gives you just enough information for you to always be on the edge of your seat, wondering what’s going to happen next.
  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. 
    • You’ve probably seen this book about. It was a New York Times bestseller. Very popular book. Again, the pacing was really beautiful. Just spot-on, how the author was able to give out the information and it did have a surprise ending. No spoilers here, but the way that the book was able to come full circle in it’s theme but also to have a surprise at the end was very masterful. Really, really loved this book.
  • Courage for Beginners by Karen Harrington. 

 

I want to send some shout-outs to some amazing members of the Writing Gym who published as well. I’m really excited for their victories, for their success, for the way that they were able to complete their writing dreams.

My first shout-out goes to Dr. Priya Saklani, who finished her book, The Wounded Healer: The True Story of a Child Sexual Abuse Survivor. She finished this book in 2017, published in 2018. 

This is a really great memoir where she is really honest about some really tough stuff. She and I had some good, tearful moments together as we worked through the contents of this book. This isn’t easy stuff to talk about. It’s not easy stuff to read. But the victory message is here. 

We talked about mastering fear earlier. Here, she’s talking about mastering an experience, moving through something and coming out the other side with positivity. This is a really powerful book from the Writing Gym. 

Next I want to send a big shout-out to our very own Stephanie Scott-Snyder, who wrote this book, not in the Writing Gym, but it was published in 2018. Stephanie works in the field of crime–I won’t tell you more than that. I’ll let her tell her own story. And her novel, When Women Offend: Crime and the Female Perpetrator, is a very compelling nonfiction. Stephanie is certainly an expert in this field who has a lot to share. 

And the last Writing Gym shout-out that I want to give is to Terry Harkin, who wrote The Big Buddha Bicycle Race. We met in New York a few years back and we worked on some of his pages and got his pitch ready. Then Terry got a three-book deal.

He’s doing really great for himself. His publishing company just sent him on a speaking tour, so I was able to meet up with him in Colorado. We had lunch, and we talked about his journey as a writer. I’m super proud of him, super happy for him, really could not be more thrilled for his success and what he’s been able to do with his story and his books.

Please support your fellow writers. Leave a review on any of these books if you’ve read them. 

This is one of the most important things you can do for the authors that you love. Take five minutes on Amazon, or Goodreads, and leave them a glowing review!

Lastly, I want to thank you all for your support of Storytelling for Pantsers. This book has sold so well. Many of you have reached out to me and asked for a signed copy that I’ve sent to you with so much joy in my heart. 

I appreciate you and I look forward to hearing from you all about the books that you love and your plans for the future.

Until next time. Happy reading and writing. 

What Books Can I Read to Break Out of Loneliness

What Books Can I Read to Break Out of Loneliness

by | Jun 11, 2020 | Books | 0 comments

What Books Can I Read to Break Out of Loneliness

I have been taking this time during lockdown, our mandatory at-homeness during COVID-19, to do what I can by sharing with you some of my favorite books. These are books that have impacted me over the years.

So, here I am again to share with you my love of books.

I was listening recently to a podcast called “On Being.” If you haven’t heard it, it’s worth listening to.

They were interviewing someone who frequently mentioned the French philosopher, Montaigne. The podcast referenced that in English, we have a distinction between loneliness and solitude built into our language. 

Not all languages have this. It’s the same word for the act of being alone and the act of being lonely, and I think that that’s a really important distinction for a lot of us.

Just because you’re alone, just because you’re isolated, just because you’re away from others doesn’t mean that you are lonely, or that you are alone without support.

We’re all here for each other, and videos like the one below hopefully can help you feel that.

So, as he mentioned Montaigne—and he’s a huge fan of that philosopher—I thought, I’ve read a book by Montaigne, so I went and I dug it out.

However, I read it in French. You don’t have to be a geek like me and read it in French, but he’s got some really important and poignant things to say, and one of the quotes that was mentioned on the podcast was talking about our minds and how in our society our minds can also almost gallop away from us.

Our minds can be out of control and bogged down in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives.

Maybe your brain feels like that. Mine certainly does from time to time, and one of the things that I do recall about Montaigne, who was French nobility and was really on a search for what we would call today, in a postmodern world, “self-realization.”

He shares his thoughts. And this particular book in English is just called Essays, so you can look it up. It’s in the public domain, because it’s hundreds of years old at this point.

So, if you’re feeling like maybe you’d like to get some connection around solitude, this might be a way for you to read somebody else’s thoughts on what it is to be alone, how to deal with solitude, how we can really find ourselves in the quiet, and the kind of questions that we can ask ourselves.

So, that’s my book recommendation for today. French philosopher Montaigne and his book called Essays–in English.

What are you reading these days? I’d love to know.

Until next time, Happy Reading!

What’s it like to co-author a book?

What’s it like to co-author a book?

by | May 22, 2016 | How to Publish, How to Write a Novel, Writing | 2 comments

What is it like to co-author a book?

 

Nate Herzog and I recently released part one of our series novel No 2. Inc.

 

Annalisa Parent Vermont Author Writer Writing Instructor

The next installment is due in June… but, have you ever wondered: what’s it like to write with someone else?  Check out this article Nate wrote for the skinny.

 

No2 Inc. Origin Story

No special abilities.

No special costumes.

Being a sidekick is just a job.

This story is about how we at No.2 Inc are creating a story, actually a series of stories, about an agency that outsources sidekick services to superheroes. With a premise involving superheroes, you might think this story was born from a love of comic books, but strangely it wasn’t. I mean, we didn’t start off by saying, “Let’s write it about the adventures of a super human.” But more on that later. For now, think of this project as one we didn’t expect to love, but eventually stole our hearts.

 I’m using the collective we a lot. There are two of us involved. Me, Nate, and my writing partner Annalisa. And No.2 Inc isn’t the name of an actual company. It’s a fictional company, an employment agency. The premise is this: all super heroes have secret identifies. In fact, they prefer to remain as incognito as possible. But, when you’re out doing super hero things in super hero ways, it can take a lot of work to keep all that under wraps. That’s where No.2 Inc comes in. They offer specialized services at keeping titanic people hidden. Think of them as sidekicks for hire.

As I mentioned, telling another super hero story didn’t initially interest us much. It had been done a lot already for decades. But, what we kept wondering about were the practicalities of being a super hero. Who patches and launders the outfits? Who upgrades the computer systems? The hero doesn’t have time for everything. What we were really interested in was the behind the scenes of hero-dom. In some cases, it was the real story of what happened when titans clashed, and who cleaned it all up. And that… that was interesting. But how did this story really begin?

Keep reading here—>>>Annalisa Parent Vermont Author Writer Writing Teacher Instructor Burlington VT

Let us know in the below comments what you think of of our story or the concept of coauthoring. 

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