Hunger vs. Muse

I had a wonderful Madison-editing day today. I headed off to Borders with a very long chapter in hand, thinking I'd work for an hour or so and then return home. The chapter in question was previously the main climax of the story, but I realized (with help from a friend) that the story wasn't really complete there, so this chapter had to be changed to a middle-of-the-tale climax.

The editing went smoothly, the new story building in between what was already there, and then I wrote two and a half pages of new text to transition to the next chapter.

It was one of those writing sessions where I'd forget the people around me for chunks of time, where the story was vivid in my head, the sensations of the characters real. It flowed.

I worked straight through lunch and beyond, hunger unnoticed until I stood up to leave after finishing the entire chapter. When my hands trembled as I picked up my notebook, I finally checked the time and realized I'd been sitting there for nearly four hours! It's days like this that reaffirm why I love being a writer.

Forced Appreciation

For all that I can say that I appreciate having all the little things that make my life easier—electricity, running water, an ice maker—there's nothing like not having something I typically take for granted to make me truly appreciate it.

The last two days, our cable Internet (which is also our phone) was on the fritz, not working for most of the day, coming on for a half hour at a time. Basically, being all around annoying. I am extremely thankful that I wasn't trying to work, which involves much Internet usage, and that I didn't need to call anyone (since I don't have a cell phone or any sort of backup phone).

I'm really appreciating that everything is working fine today!

Belated Acknowledgments

It occurred to me a few days ago that I've been receiving ARCs (advanced reading copies) of several novels in the past two or three months, none of which I've mentioned on my blog. This wasn't because the books weren't good. It was simply because these books have the misfortune of not fitting into the reading requirements I've felt lately (mainly lighthearted and fanciful). Nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to reading these novels, all by new-to-me authors, but I have to wait until I'm in the right mood, lest I not give them their due credit.

In no particular order:

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is a historical drama that blends modern-day graduate student Connie's life with that of her ancestors, and Connie learns that there's a possibility that all those tales of witches weren't made up. Two things drew me to this book: the witches, and the fact that Katherine Howe wrote it for National Novel Writing Month, something I've participated in two years in a row, and the reason I now have two full Madison novels to edit. (Since I can't offer my opinion yet, I can offer my mom's, who read the book and enjoyed it.)


The Invention of Everything Else is also a drama, this one about Louisa and her relationship with Nikola Tesla, the inventor, and, if I'm reading the back of the book right, about Louisa's own journey of self-discovery through the bond she forms with this visionary genius. When I first saw the title, I really hoped that it was nonfiction. I have a fascination with people who create real, touchable things out of their imagination. As real as my stories are to me (and as real as other people's stories are to me), they're still not physically tangible. When I discovered that it was a fiction novel, the book lost none of its appeal.

The Lost Throne has all the appeal of The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones combined in a "action-packed, thrilling novel" about a top-secret elite soldiers-turned-citizens who must recover a lost treasure before it can be destroyed by those who seek to protect it from being discovered. Really, need I say more? I've not read Chris Kuzneski's other novels (Sword of God or Sign of the Cross), but I'm hoping that this will be my gateway book to a whole new author.


Die For You cuts really close to my romance/thriller threshold, but just reading the back flap still gets me excited to read the novel, which is why it's still in my to-be-read pile. Isabel's husband disappears, and from there, it's a string of escalating surrealism for Isabel: the police are of no help; she searches her husbands place of work, only to be knocked unconscious during an FBI raid on the place; all her husband's coworkers are found dead; Isabel's money mysteriously vanishes from her accounts; and finally the man who she thought she loved has been dead for years, and she's been married to a complete stranger. That's a lot to give away on the back of a novel, which hints that there's going to be a lot more story inside. (My mom also read this novel and confirmed that it's a good read. She also allayed my fears that it would be too scary.)

I was drawn to Sacred Hearts strictly by the portrayal of the protagonist in the novel's description. The story is set in the sixteenth century, in a convent, which is far from my usual happy novel place. The main character, Serafina (great name, right?) is "willful, emotional," and furious for being sent to a convent, and her rebellious spirit rabble-rouses from within the convent walls. I love a strong female protagonist, especially one that finds her true self from amidst her more violent emotions. I like the exploration of the rawer side of women, something that doesn't happen in the romances I typically read (though I'll occasionally come across it in fantasy novels).

As you can see, all these novels sound like great reads, but not necessarily light reads. And I've waited so long to mention them that I believe they're all out in your local bookstores, so check them out.

True Blood

If you've been reading my recent posts, you'll know that I love Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels. It only made sense that I'd be excited about the release of True Blood, the HBO show based on those novels, which was recently released on Netflix. Yet, with half the season watched, I'm still not sure what to think.

I love the novels for their great balance of imagination, horror, action, and humor—humor being a big part. The voice of Sookie is enjoyable as much because it is so strong as it is for her particular quirks that are both amusing and relatable. Seeing Sookie on the small screen doesn't always translate.

I think my biggest hangup is simply a result of the network that produced the series. Had PAX or even ABC produced True Blood, I think they would have made more of an effort to balance the emotional elements of the story. HBO, however, is a dark network, happy to parade the worst, pile on a little horror/violence, a little sex—okay, a lot of sex and a lot of violence—and they're light on humor. They did a great job of capturing the drama of the characters' lives, and of exploring the horrific, but in the process, they lost a bit of the lightness that is classic in the tales.

I really wanted to like this series. I really wanted to see certain scenes and how they would interpret them on screen. But every time I finish an episode, I feel off. It was the way I felt when I would watch a Deadwood episode. Like the negative of humanity had been presented as all there was to people, like that rawness was the only truth there is, and it didn't sit well with me.

I haven't watched an episode in two weeks, and I'm still debating whether to continue it or not. What was your take?

Madison Success

I sat down today feeling decidedly uninspired to work on Madison. I chalked it up to one of those things that sounds better when you're not doing it (like most adventures—I imagine that the people who climb Mt. Everest get a lot more enjoyment out of planning and later telling their tale than they do during the arduous climb and mind-numbing, body-mutilating temperatures, but I digress). I started distracted after a plethora of morning chores that multiplied every time I finished one, and I finally pushed it all aside to work.

I wrote for 3.5 hours today and got 3,200+ words of a new scene down. It felt great. I went out for some exercise immediately afterward and figured out a few bits that I'll need to change before I go on to write the next scene, but it's so much easier to change and add to a scene that's there than it is to start fresh, so I'm not too worried about that. All in all, I'm feeling very pleased with myself. Today was definitely a success!

Restless Reading

I couldn't stick with Janet Evanovich's Full House. After praising her Stephanie Plum series, this earlier work fell flat. Which was completely unexpected since I've liked several of her other "screwball comedy" novels.

There was only one thing to do: go out and buy Charlaine Harris's From Dead to Worse, which was the book that I was missing before I can read the book I coerced Cody into buying for me. I bought this one myself, so I've already broken my no-book-buying rule. Sigh. What's a girl with an addiction like mine to do?

Indulge is the word that comes to mind. I'm several chapters into FDtW and loving it.

Admiration for Brevity

I'm naturally long-winded in my writing. I do a lot of trimming and a lot of word swaps to find the one word that says what a sentence used to say. I really enjoy that part, because I feel like I'm refining my writing into something more perfect, something that pulls the reader along without them even realizing it. I want to be one of those authors that people stay up all night reading because they simply can't resist the next line.

For me, Janet Evanovich, especially Evanovich's Stephaine Plum novels, is that type of author. She's a master and an inspiration for me. She packs so much into each novel, so much action, adventure, and humor. She's got enough romance to keep me happy, too. But more than that, she gets the most out of every word—descriptions that fit into a sentence and scenes that fit on a page, and all of it feels as complete as if I'd been standing right next to the characters, and she didn't have to beat me over the head with pages and pages of filler text. It's all very impressive, and I try to make myself go slow enough to appreciate it, as difficult as that is.

I just finished Seven Up, and I normally don't like to read the same author back to back, but I'm going to be forced to this time. And by forced I mean this: Remember when I coerced Cody into buying me a book so I wouldn't break my self-inflicted rule of no book buying for three months? And remember how it had to be the next Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse novel? Well, it turns out that I don't have the novel before the one that Cody purchased for me (something I discovered after reading two pages of the new book and discovering a huge spoiler!).

Having had my heart set on a Harris novel, and not having one to read, I roamed through my to-be-read piles and did the first-line test to see which appealed to me. Evanovich's romance novel Full House won because she mentions polo in the first sentence, and I was just telling Cody that my list of things I want to do before I die is up to two things, and one of them is play polo. (The other is do some bungee jumping stuff like in the first Lara Croft movie.) I'm looking forward to a funny read, and while this tides me over, maybe the book fairy will bring me the missing Harris novel.