Sunday, March 13, 2011

There She Be!

Wow. I blinked and it's been a week. What happened? Looking at my belly indicates food was involved, the rest was a blur.

I'm not sure if I got home earlier than 9 o'clock even once during the past week, and I was running to and fro all weekend on top of it. I think it has served to make this the teeniest online presence I've had in many months. The week to come looks to be more of the same, ugh. I may need to take a day off to sit back and relax. That said, I have  few items to discuss, all of them random and meaningless.

1) I'm still tinkering with both my novel and my recent short story. I thought I put the short story to bed but discovered a flaw or two that required a small change, which of course led to another necessary change, added a character that wasn't in a scene as I originally conceived, which meant said scene had to be rewritten. And that meant that my story was going off the rails due to the new changes I'd made. Looks like I'm sitting on around 10k word count now. That story isn't so short anymore.

Ever wondered what awesome looks like? Now you know.
2) Feed, by Mira Grant is all sorts of awesome. Definitely the best book I read in 2011. I'll be picking up the sequel the day it's released.

3) Reading the book mentioned in point number 2 reminded me of how much a problem I have writing when I'm reading a really good book.  I seem to get all depressed about what I'm writing because it looks so crappy in comparison. I mean. what I'm writing may well be crappy, but I can't actually create something that I think is crappy while I'm creating. I don't work that way. While it's coming out of my fingertips I'm convinced it's the greatest thing a human has ever produced, up there with Relativity or the Sistine Chapel. To realize it's really crap too early screws with my mind, I can't know that until later.

4) I accidentally started reading another book too, after reading a couple of books over the past four or five months that I was very disappointed in, I forgot how great a great novel can be.

5) I was given some blog awards during the past week, and featured on J.C. Martin's blog as part of her Friday Follower feature. I do intend to discuss in a separate post. But I'm like that naughty uncle that shows up at the family Thanksgiving dinner drunk, tells dirty jokes during the prayer, farts throughout the meal, and finishes by vomiting on the table and passing out in the bathtub. Or, in other words, pleasantly eccentric. So forgive me if I'm slow in passing along the good tidings, I just suck at etiquette.

I think that's it. My thoughts go with those that suffered in the disaster in Japan this week. Horrible.

See you soon.

6 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

I'm with you on Number 3. Actually I have an entry or more like an insane rant about that this upcoming week.

Les said...

>Definitely the best book I read in 2011.
Are... are you a time traveller?

In regards to 4, I only get books from this one bookstore, and every single one I've gotten has been awesome. As long as I stay in the science fiction section of the store, then it's rosy.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Yeah, I get depressed when reading a great book...

Rusty Carl said...

Rogue - so glad I'm not alone, I look forward to your rant.

Les - well, it is the best book I've read this year. Time traveler's don't exist. That's ridiculous. I'm psychic.

And you are blessed with you store, I have read outside my genre, and some self published books, both are ways to find gems you might not otherwise read, but it's dangerous waters out there.

Alex - you and me both, if anything, I underplayed how upset it makes me. I've got to get so much better.

A Beer for the Shower said...

That sounds like a great book. I think I might check it out. I need something new to read. When I read, btw, it actually improves my writing by getting ideas here or there about sentence structure, particular verbs/nouns I like, etc.

And I know the uncle you speak of, and I'm afraid I'm turning into that blogger as well. I get awards, and I just forget to post about them because it's always the same thing -- tell 7 things about yourself, and pass it on. I'm bad at that.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Good points here and Happy St. Patty's day.