Category: Reading

Writing and Reading

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi
My TBR Shelf Currently

It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of January. Last month I mentioned I was only six entries ahead of the My Darling Tragedy publishing schedule. I hoped this month I’d increase that to seven entries, but I’m still at six, despite trying my best. I realized, however, that Orly’s journal entries in her second journal are longer. The first thirteen entries in the second journal amount to 20K words. The first thirteen of the first journal amount to 13K. Then again, the last 13 of the first journal amount to 18K. I guess I’m just writing longer as I go on. Still, with the second journal, because of calendar constraints within the story created by Orly’s 25th birthday, I feel like I must compress more story within fewer entries. I’m excited to write it all though. I’m also excited for my readers to read the second journal. I feel confident they’re going to like the story.

I set my 2026 Goodreads reading goal to 52 books. Same as last year and most years. But I’m behind already. We’re four weeks into the year and I’ve only finished three books. My TBR shelf is full and contains many books which were added in 2025 if not earlier. I really hope I make a dent into it this year, but new books always manage to cut in, and I have other books I must read for book clubs. I can’t wait for March though, when the new Mieko Kawakami book Sisters in Yellow is released in America; I feel like my copy has been on pre-order for a year.

Other than writing and reading, I don’t really have anything else to report. I can’t make room to do anything additionally because of my current workload at my day job. I’m going to finish an important project soon and hopefully its completion will allow me more time to myself.

 

End of 2025

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi
My Tops for 2025

I was happy with the reader response to Entry 79: “Hagfish”—the final entry of the first journal of My Darling Tragedy. They were surprised with how the journal ended. After taking a break to work on the other novel (Forever Candy) I’m doing my best to get caught up with My Darling Tragedy. The first three entries of the second journal have already posted, and I have six more ready. But I need to get to eight in pocket to feel comfortable. I’m on winter recess from work right now, so that gives me more time to write, but because of a project I have due in January, I also must work in the office while everyone else is out on break.

I’ve done a lot of story building already for the second journal, much more than I did at this point with the first journal. I think the second journal will appeal most to readers who, among the trilogy, preferred Scribbling the Eternal. There’s going to be a few storylines going. I’m even writing some of the Yelena/Marcel story which I received requests for as a prequel after The Scribbled Victims was published.

I’ve kept up walking at least 5,000 steps per day. Today’s walk will be 70 days in a row. I’m generally getting between 7,000 and 8,000 steps each day. I see my doctor tomorrow. He’ll be happy. A recent blood test showed dramatic improvements. At this rate, maybe I’ll live long enough to write ten journals.

This is my last blog post of 2025 which means I must mention my favorite reads for the year. Number one would be The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I had read it in 2014, but it hit me a lot harder this year as I think I paid more attention to the writing than only the story. My runner up read of the year would be The Vagrants by Li Yiyun. This year, I also want to mention the music I listened to. I’m certain my most listened to song was Almond Chocolate by ILLIT; it even appears in Entry 45: “Petals” of My Darling Tragedy. But my Spotify Year-End summary notified me I was the 533 top listener of ILLIT globally. I knew I listened to them a lot (I’m listening right now while writing this), but I had no idea I’d rank that high when they have millions of listeners. That made me happy.

This post makes 2025 sound good, and in some ways, it was, but overall, I think it was a sad year, considering the state of the world—open genocide, wars, famine, wealth inequality—and here at home with the continued dismantling of our democracy and our acceptance of racist policies. I’m hoping 2026 will bring with it some repairs, but I don’t believe a single year can bring enough.

Two Books At Once

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

I’m still working on turning Exhume into a novel. I’ve been at it for seventy days straight. I’m making incremental progress, averaging 130 new words a day. The more I work on it though, the less sure I feel I want to show it to anyone. To be honest, the more I work on it, the less excited I feel about it. This might be because I’m struggling to develop the characters beyond the screenplay version. It might also be because I’m writing in third person, present tense, which I’ve never done before. I chose this as it felt closest to the way a screenplay is written.

Recently, I had this thought of writing Forever Candy from a different point-of-view. The last time I tried writing it, I was writing from Candy’s POV, in first person. But now I’m thinking of writing it from Burrows’ POV. I’ve tried that before, but only in third person. For some reason it never occurred to me to write him from first person. I wrote a little, just to try it out, and I got really excited about it.

I talked to my shrink about this quandary of mine—which story to pursue now. Even though I’m struggling with the Exhume story, she and I both belief that the regularity in which I’ve been writing it has really improved my mood and helped pull me out of my last depression. We’re wary of me walking away from that. On the other hand, I’m so excited to write this other story right now, that I feel like I should seize the opportunity of inspiration.

My shrink suggested I work on both, simultaneously. I can keep making my little daily progress on Exhume, while also embracing the excitement I feel with writing a different book. When she said it, it baffled me because I’ve never written two books at once. When I wrote The Last Midnight, feeling inspired, I had to put Scribbles of the Empress down completely, even though I was already 40,000 words into it, and I only picked it back up after I had finished.

So, I guess I’m going to give it a go, writing two books at once. Wish me luck.

Yellowface by R.F. KuangI’ve been going to the gym regularly and counting calories on MyFitnessPal because my doctor told me I really need to lose weight. In twelve weeks, I’ve lost 18 lbs. While on the treadmill last week, I listened to Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. A friend from Silent Book Club told me she had read it. She mentioned what a despicable character the POV characters is, but I really enjoyed the character and found myself relating to her. This wasn’t because I want to or ever would plagiarize another author (but if I did, it would be Kwon Yeo-sun and her book Lemon, LOL), but because, as a mediocre writer, I know all too well what it feels like to be jealous of writers who have more talent than I’ll ever have. While listening to Yellowface, I was really impressed with and jealous of the author with how smart and sharp her writing is. She’s super gifted.

I don’t know if it was that book or other books I’ve read recently (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Road, All the Lovers in the Night), but I’ve glimpsed the dawning of me giving up as a writer, feeling like I’m just not talented enough to write something worthy of the readership I daydream of having. Mediocrity is a dreadful thing to feel.

I know it’s not over just yet though. I’m going to try to keep going, fueled by my hopes that Forever Candy will be a good book. Again, wish me luck.

Grasshopper

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

My Favorite Reads of Another blog lapse. I haven’t posted here since August. This is only my fifth post of 2023 and it’s the last day of the year. Maybe it seems remiss of me not to have posted since August, but I haven’t had anything noteworthy to mention. Since that last post, I’ve just been spinning my wheels, going in circles, and getting nowhere. I tried working on I Was Mistaken, like I mentioned, but it became painful to write. My shrink said a little discomfort is okay, but what I was doing was retraumatizing myself. I then went back to writing about Tara Raikatuji but couldn’t find her voice and so I completed another lap around my circle of stories by returning to Forever Candy. I struggled with the same point of view problems I’ve always had with that story, and my last attempt read back so lifelessly that it made me think of a desiccated grasshopper, if that’s a thing. This week, I pulled out a screenplay I wrote in 2008 about a cellist. It’s kind of a haunted house story. I’m kicking around having a go at novelizing it and it feels fresh because it’s not yet part of my traditional merry-go-round of stories that I tinker with then give up on. I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere though.

So that’s what I’ve been doing since August, even though I’ve written every day for the past 48 days. I’ve been forcing myself to write for a minimum of ten minutes a day to try to get something going. Though I haven’t made any progress on any of my projects, forcing myself to write like this has at least awakened whatever it is that allows me to daydream. I’m hoping this will soon lead me to finding solutions with my current stories or thinking of something entirely new.

I’m going to remember 2023 as the year I had writer’s block. I’ll also remember it as the year I read All the Lovers in the Night and Kokoro. It’s also the year I deleted Twitter, and deactivated my author Instagram and TikTok. I decided only to keep my personal accounts (@deadponies). My author accounts felt like a collection of promotional posts for my books rather than showing anything about me as a person. Hopefully, the posts about me are more interesting than my advertisements.

I really hope I get through this writer’s block soon. I can’t have another year like this. I was thinking about pretending I got an agent and a book deal so I can give myself a deadline to finish something—anything.

Goodbye 2023.

Hello 2024.

Private Thoughts

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

Yesterday I finished reading Native Son by Richard Wright. It was difficult to read because of the blatant racism depicted on so many levels and I know that the depiction was accurate. I believe America has made progress since the release of that book, but know we still live in a racist society. Worse I know that many people in America today look back at how things were in that book as favorable and as a time they’d like to get back to. I believe those conditions are included for many when they don Make America Great Again caps.

As for the writing of the book, what struck me as profound was that in its four hundred plus pages, there were very few plot points in the book. Very significant things occurred but in terms of plot points, they were limited in a book of this length. And I see that allowed for the genius of the book. The majority of the text related the internal thoughts of the point of view character, Bigger Thomas, and the subtext of the actions that surrounded him.

With Orly Bialek, I try to devote a lot of her narration to her private thoughts, but someday I would like to write something that really plunged so deeply into one’s thoughts (perhaps even my own) that the thoughts themselves become the true story. But that is hard to do. It is not as easy as just sticking to an internal monologue. It has to be understandable, relatable, and still possess the things a story requires—a progression of character, a movement of circumstances, a reckoning, a realization, a change. I referred to this as the genius of Native Son and that is what it is.

Native Son by Richard Wright

AMS

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

Because I haven’t written since I finished Scribbling The Eternal, I am really itching to start writing again. I think I’ve taken enough time off. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and watching tutorials about Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), so I can learn how to promote my books better on Amazon. It’s a lot of work and there is a lot to know, but I’m hoping that if I focus devote time to it, I’ll see positive results. 

I continue to dream of a day when I can stop reporting to an office on weekdays and spend all my days writing. 

Beautiful

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

This is the first weekend in a very long time that I did not spend writing. As I said in my previous post, I decided to step away from Scribbling The Eternal for a couple of weeks before giving it my final read. I’ve been spending most of my time seeing friends and reading. Today I finished reading Nausea and now plan to read a book about writing poetry that was co-authored by a poet I greatly admire, Kim Addonizio. My aim isn’t to become a poet, but I’m hoping to make my fiction writing more beautiful to read.