Category: Books & Writing

A nice surprise

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So this afternoon I’m actually on a mini-roll of writing when the door buzzer goes off. “Bloody hell” I mutter (ok, so maybe I said “huh?” but ‘bloody hell’ sounds more interesting). I’m not expecting anyone so it’s either someone at the wrong building or, y’know, some other irritant. How the hell am I supposed to earn my Recluse Merit Badge when people come buzzing the damned buzzer?

But it’s the UPS guy, which is weird because I haven’t ordered anything. And he’s got a big, heavy box.

Flashback to last December. I was so jazzed at the end of my first NaNo that I decided I was going to really work at this writing idea. And in that flush of enthusiasm I registered for the World Fantasy Convention 2006, which was held Nov. 2-6 in Austin, TX. I went to work and put in for the vacation time…11 months in advance. I was pumped!

I never anticipated being unemployed though. So I couldn’t go to the convention; between airfare and hotel accomodations, I just didn’t have the money. I didn’t bother asking for a refund of my fee or anything. I just…well, it was pretty depressing, the whole thing. (We won’t go into the fact that from Dec 2005-Oct. 31 2006 I didn’t write a word of fiction.)

So where was I? Yeah ok, so it’s the UPS guy with this big box. I sign for it and look at the label and it says “World Fantasy Convention 2006.”

“What the hell?” I say to the cat. She gives me ‘that look’ and goes back to licking her bottom.

So I open it and its full of goodies from the con! There’s a bookbag stuffed full of novels, plus a program and a few magazines. They even sent my badge. So now I have ten new novels to read, and not a single one is a duplicate of something I already had.

What a cool treat!!! It made my day. It made my day so much that I registered for World Fantasy Convention 2007, in fact. That one’s in Saratoga Springs, NY, so I can drive there… I know I can go if I can drive there.

Harshini

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Harshini

I finished Jennifer Fallon’s Harshini last night. This is book 3 of The Demon Child Trilogy. I liked the first book, Medalon, and loved the second, Treason Keep. So it breaks my heart to say that Harshini didn’t satisfy me.

My problem was that a few of the characters, and in particular the main character, changed dramatically between the end of Treason Keep and the start of Harshini. Now I know the whole point of novels is to watch people change and grow. But this just felt ‘off’ to me. This is an awkward metaphor, but it was as if R’Shiel had been a medical student in Medalon, an intern in Treason Keep, then a lawyer in Harshini. I kept thinking “Wait? What? R’Shiel wouldn’t be acting like this!”

Again, don’t take the metaphor too literally. I’m not actually talking career choices here. But she was brash and wreckless in the first two books, yet she was also sympathetic. Your heart went out to this young girl that was facing so many hardships and so many uncomfortable truths. You could forgive her her faults, what with everything she was going through.

In Harshini, she is still brash and wreckless, but now she is also thoughtless. She keeps doing things that hurt people and doesn’t really seem to care. Or if she cares, she doesn’t learn from the experience. When her actions — actions that she has been advised against again and again — cause the death of someone she seems to like and respect, she laments it for about one paragraph. In the first two books she’s often referred to as a spoiled brat, but it isn’t until Harshini that she begins acting like one.

Stan Lee once said (through the mouth of Uncle Ben in Spiderman) “With great power comes great responsiblitly.” Listen up, authors. You need to listen to Stan! The man knows that of which he speaks! In this book R’Shiel is wielding great power, but she’s wielding it with no thoughts of responsibility or consquences. It would be a trivial thing to change Harshini into a book where R’Shiel was the great evil to be conquered, really. Specially since the ‘evil god’ in these books is uncomfortably close to the Christian God in what he considers sinful. (Fallon’s ‘out’ here is that Xaphista considers love a sin. Don’t ask me how he expects his followers to procreate.)

When the hero of a book is someone you find yourself strongly disliking, it’s hard to enjoy the book. So that was my main issue. My other main gripe is with the gods. They’re active characters in this series but in the first two books Fallon managed to restrain them in various ways. But in Harshini, they become a deus ex machina solution to too many problems. At the same time, R’Shiel is, well, a nasty bitch to them constantly and they just sigh and let her walk all over them. Very strange.

So now I’m stuck. I don’t know if I can still recommend the other two books, knowing the end is going to be such a let down. I suppose I still can. Harshini isn’t a horrible book, by any means. Other readers may even like the newly empowered R’Shiel. But to me… although I’m glad I read the book, it was just a disappointment after how wonderful I’d found Treason Keep to be.

NaNo 2006, Day 9 (?)

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So, no progress on the NaNovel today. It’s depressing to see that ‘words behind’ number grow, let me tell you.

But I realized I was so fractured that I wasn’t getting anything done because I was trying to do everything at once. So tonight instead of NaNoing I finished up an article that’s been kicking my ass. It’s one I never really wanted to do; I just kind of fell into it. Someone asked me if I would be interested in doing it and I think I said “Maybe” or something, and she took that as a yes and the next thing I knew it was my assignment.

Anyway I just sent it off. Hopefully it’ll be accepted as is and I’ll be done with it. It wasn’t due until next Monday. I have another due the following Monday but then I’m free of writing obligations aside from NaNo. (Well, I’m waiting on a piece of loaner equipment for another piece, but I’ll worry about that when it arrives.) Anyway, my *hope* is that I can quiet my mind and use Friday evening-Saturday-Sunday as pure NaNoveling time. Alternatively I might jump on the other article and get that going and get it done early…we’ll see.

When last I wrote, my novel had taken yet another turn, and a pretty fun one. I’m not going back to read anything because that makes editing way too tempting. But I know in my heart that the first 7-8000 words I wrote will be cut if I ever try to polish this up into a submittable book. It took that long to get the flow going.

In other news, my apologies to those friends out there who’re leaving me comments and not having them show up. The damned spammers are killing me, again. It takes a long time to filter through the spam and find the legit comments. I saw an article in Wired a few months back about an infamous spammer who was found bludgeoned to death. I know this doesn’t reflect very well on me, but all I thought when I read that was “Good, he deserved it.” When you make your living by irritating the hell out of people…you have to be building up a pretty damned big karmic debt.

NaNo and Life, Day 6

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OK, I *finally* shook off the blahs and got my sorry ass in gear. No, no, don’t look at the work count..I’m still a tad behind there. But behind the scenes I cleared up a lot of little niggling things that were leeching psychic energy away, and I remembered that having a bit of a ritual helps with my writing.

As always, my friends, old and new, have been incredibly supportive and I’ve been drawing huge gobs of power from them.

My MC and his faithful sidekick are on the run now, fleeing down alleys and hiding out in seedy taverns, so things are starting to get interesting in the book, too.

NaNo 2006, Day 5

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I’ve decided to give myself today off. I’m already feeling stressed and burnt-out, though not just from NaNo.

Is this the sophomore slump? Or is this that weird situation where the less you have to do, the harder it is to accomplish? I’m not sure. I’m just really having a lot of trouble quieting my mind so the words can flow. I keep jumping back to problems I’m working on for my freelance job, or articles I should be writing. Last year when I was working, I’d come home from work and leave the job behind. I guess because I’m working from home and at crazy hours, I’m having trouble ‘shutting down’ that part of my brain.

As to the book itself, it’s… meh. So far I think last year’s was a lot better, but then I don’t remember what I thought of that one on day 5.

Bonus event: Now that I’m posting regularly, the spammers are flooding the site. No, you don’t see them. But I’m having to moderate 50-100 link-spams comments every day. Vermin. I detest spammers and their bots.

NaNo 2006, Day 2

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Bleah.

Day 2 and I’m already discouraged. Well, a little discouraged.

My NaNovel is dull so far. And… well, I’m not really sure where its going. So far my MC (Main Character) is more an observer than anything. I need to get him engaged somehow.

And life is being a pain. Suddenly I’m in demand at irregular times. I should’ve expected this since we just launched a new site but still its been frustrating. I had urgent emails asking for help at nearly midnight last night, and they kept coming in throughout the day.

Mind you, I’m not complaining, except in terms of the impact on my NaNovel. The impact on my wallet is very, very much appreciated. 🙂

The NaNo counter widgets are slowing down DC, too. Next year I’ll have to build something local. BTW those little lines above the logo aren’t errors. They’re a ‘sparkline’ that is suppose to show how far over or under my daily quota I am. As we get more days behind us hopefully the information will be more clear.

NaNo 2006, Day 1

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Well it hasn’t been the most auspicious of beginnings.

Problem the first: The NaNoWriMo web site is tanking hard. I can’t even access it to post my word count, so my little counter gizmo isn’t updated.

Problem the second: A water main broke and I had no water all day, which made my morning a major chore and had me off kilter all afternoon. Granted I should’ve been able to rise above that.

Problem the third: I had decided I was going to use Scrivener as of last night. Then I got a beta key for Jer’s Novel Writer and fell in love with its margin notes, so I transcribed everything from Scrivener to JNW. But then I found out that JNW really isn’t ready for prime time. I was spending more time fiddling with trying to get it to accept notes than I was writing. So then I transcribed everything back to Scrivener. *sigh*

That all said, I think I got about 1,800 words done. I’m aiming for 2,000/day, so I’m starting off behind. Of course the day isn’t over yet.

As to the actual writing…it didn’t exactly flow at first, and I spent a lot of time naming people and filling in Scrivener’s ‘research’ panel with notes about the characters. But by the end of my writing session it was feeling a bit better.

Ready….begin!

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Just a few more hours until NaNo starts. I’ve been chomping at the bit to get started. Of course, I spent most of the last week worrying about what software I’m going to use, rather than about trivial details like plot or characters. I ended up deciding on Scrivener, though Jer’s Novel Writer was a close runner-up. I really like its margin notes.

So I’ve got the Scrivener project set up. Chapter 1 is sitting there blank and waiting. Of course, I have to work tomorrow…didn’t expect that. Not that I’m complaining. Eating is a good thing. But it means I have to give up my “Start at midnight and write until I drop!” plan. Probably for the best.

I’m more excited this year than I was last year. And I’ve been thinking about last year’s novel, which I’ve hardly touched since. I think I’m going to break it out in December and get to work on re-writing/expanding it. I think there’s enough there to make a decent book. But we’ll see.

Anyway, wish me luck. And nag me if my word count starts falling behind. I’m aiming for 2000 words/day and a 60,000 novel.

Treason Keep

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Treason Keep

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain against the windows and nothing else. It took me a moment to realize what had me feeling odd. The power was off. No quiet humming, no blinking lights. No lure of TV or the internet. Nothing to do but curl up near a window with a good book and read while the rain continued to lash at the glass.

And so I finished Treason Keep, the second book in Jennifer Fallon’s Demon Child Trilogy. If you’ve read my review of the first book, Medalon, you know I had some issues with the writing on a technical level. I’m happy to say that Ms. Fallon’s second book is much more polished, with the only real problem being a somewhat rushed ending. Characters undergo some rather drastic changes in attitude quite rapidly, just in time for the book to end. It’s almost as if Ms. Fallon had a certain word count that she needed to finish inside of, and ran out of room.

But that doesn’t mean Treason Keep is a bad book. Far from it. Once again Ms. Fallon grabs us by the hand and drags us along through a wonderful adventure. There’s magic, love, political intrigue and battle. What more can the fantasy reader ask for? Our favorite characters from Medalon return, and Fallon smoothly introduces new people for us to love or hate, as the case may be. Along the way we lose some friends, too; here is an author who knows how to pick characters to kill off. Her victims are important enough that we really care about them dying, but not so important that we lose interest in the story or feel betrayed.

Harshini is the last book in the trilogy and I’ll waste no time in getting started with it. Fallon has me in her clutches and I have to know how this story will play out. Medalon was a very enjoyable book. Treason Keep is better. Recommended.