Reviews on Elise Volkman

Plots to Rival the Heatwave 🔥

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0800

The whole “Editor is on hiatus 💜” thing? What a joke.

I mean, I AM. But I’m also not. Between beta reads for 2+ friends, two sneaky poetry edits, and a glorious fantasy novel, this editor is keeping her dreams alive by the skin of her teeth. Work/life balance? Never heard of her.

I kid. To be fair, I’m finding a balance between 3 part-time work contracts, one upper-level course, and a little editing on the side. I promise I even find time to have fun. Climbing on the evenings and weekends, video games for a little unwinding, and I’ve naturally found time to read too. See?

What Spines Ya Crackin'? 📚 (BOOK spines, that is)

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 08:00:00 -0800

Book spines! I swear I meant BOOK spines! I get that I’m a fantasy author with a penchant for the darker tales (though you cannot accuse me of publishing any tragedies, those will never see beyond the deep, dark reaches of a digital filing cabinet). But come ON.

It’s now 2024. The last time I updated anyone on my reading progress was last year, when I had read 26 books in the first quarter of 2023. My dismal math skills aside, this was a shock to me. And by the end of the final quarter of 2023, we were sitting pretty at … 🥁 🥁 🥁 … 90! This is quite the adjustment from my original January plan to read (checks notes) exactly ONE book per month. One. 1. Uno. Un. Not two. Not three. Not zero. One.

Why Soft Magic Systems Are So Hard to Write 🪄

Wed, 17 May 2023 19:00:00 -0800

It took me two attempts to finish reading For the Throne by Hannah Whitten. At first, I thought I was just bored because the book started off with different POV characters. But in the end, the thing that was really bothering me was the magic system.

Soft and hard magic systems are like the difference between Star Wars and Project Hail Mary. Everyone’s favourite space opera is pretty approachable even if you don’t care a lick about science, while Project Hail Mary, from the author of The Martian, will only appeal to those who are willing to learn about the nitty gritty details of the science at play.

Meet My New Favourite Author, Plus a Few More 📚

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 08:00:00 -0800

Crows, security robots, seas made of spores, and a subspecies of dragon called a quigutl. Yes, dear friends. You’re in for a whole lot of good this quarter. If you need any reading material, I’ll keep you going for a while. My goal was to read 24 books by the end of this year — that’s one each month, in case you hate math as much as I do. Reason being, I wasn’t feeling like reading much at all for a while and didn’t think I could manage much more than that.

A Few More Good Reads: Happy New Year! 🥂

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 14:30:44 -0800

As I sat down to pick out my top reads of the last quarter of 2022, I looked at my list and thought to myself, “Well, this looks a lot more like me.” And yet, as I write this, I feel less like myself than I ever have. Aren’t people funny paradoxes? Funny isn’t the right word, but we use it like that all the time. Funny can mean can mean odd, unsettling, and uncomfortable. But at face value, it’s just … funny.

Reading Round-Up — September 2022

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 05:00:00 -0700

Skip to the books

Slowing Down But Never Stopping

In August, I popped in here to talk about “good writing.” By that, I meant the three books I had read that year that made me say “I want to write like that one day.” (That’s the author’s version of “I want to be like them when I grow up.”) Since then, I have read eight books. Is that a lot? Eight books in two months? I guess that’s a lot for some people, and not a lot for some, but it’s a lot more than I expected from myself this year. In January alone, I read eight books, so by that count, I’d have to say I’ve slowed down.

Good Writing: My Top 3 Reads of 2022 (So Far)

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 12:33:21 -0700

An Enchantment of Ravens
If We Were Villains
The Love Hypothesis

To Read or Not To Read

I can count on one hand the number of books I’ve read this year that have made me want to write. And I’ve read 30 books so far. Maybe those aren’t great odds. Maybe I should be more selective about the books I pick up; maybe I should DNF (did-not-finish) more often. But once I start reading something, I have an excruciatingly hard time stopping until I reach “The End.” If I consider stopping because I’m not enjoying it, I invariably end up feeling guilty. Am I just not in the right mood for it? Am I in a bad headspace with writing at the moment, and I’m taking it out on this poor author?