First off, in order to keep myself motivated in a timely manner, I joined Elana’s Writing Throwdown Challenge. We each make a writing goal for the next thirty days, then hold each other accountable. After taking several months off from grieving and work stress (very bad time in my life this past winter), I’m ready to challenge my goals, and to make them work for me. I don’t want to meet my expectations, I want to exceed them. And I can only do that by getting dirty.
My goal, incidentally, is rewriting a chapter a week – about 3k-4k words.
Elana, I’m really hoping you’ll keep the accountability group going after thirty days. I think thirty days to evaluate goals and reset them is good.
I finally read the last book in a trilogy that I’ve been meaning to read for about a year - The Eternal Rose by Gail Dayton. I loved the first two books, and no matter how the first ones develop, I try to finish a series so I can understand the whole arc, for better or worse. In the case of the third book, it was not as good as the first two. The first two were crisp, with well-defined issues and zippy plots. Real suck you in material. This third one was about the characters waffling on their feelings and life direction, and it shows. The first third was a slow starter, and it didn’t really pick up into her usual pizazz until halfway through. If you like unique ideas in fantasy, however, give it a read. The culture is that of polygamy with a magic twist – very nifty.I also finally picked up some books by Kelley Armstrong. On one hand, I can see why she’s popular. On the other hand, she’s got some writing pitfalls that drive me nuts. But a good story will not be held back, and she does craft a good story.
I’m always looking for new authors/suggestions. Feel free to recommend books to me. Especially newer ones published in the last three years. I’d prefer not vampires/werewolves. I’m getting sick of the paranormal fantasy genre. Give me some good magic casting books.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
4 comments:
Although I'm definitely interested in your writing (I'm just bad at commenting sometimes) it was great to hear a little about your life, too! I'm happy to hear that you're giving yourself a little bit of a writing challenge. I believe that when we challenge ourselves, even if we don't succeed in the way that we originally planned, we gain something meaningful out of it. Also, I really admire your dedication to your writing. I may have said this before, but if I wasn't allowed to do it as a full-time job I don't know that I'd have the motivation to write anything worthwhile on my own time. It's about all I can do to ramble for a blog on a daily basis.
As far as books, I'm probably no help. I read the Twilight series because my mom pretty much shoved it at me and it was good, but overrated. I NEVER read sci-fi/fantasty, so we probably don't have any similar tastes in books. For something non-fiction and a little different, have you ever read Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott or or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert? The first is thoughts on writing, and I read it in college. The second is by a writer who decides she doesn't want kids, doesn't want to be married and goes to three countries on book advance money to learn about herself.
Happy Friday to you!
/cheers for a fellow #throwdown member!
Good luck with the Throwdown Challenge! Sounds like a great one! Best of luck to you with it.
Book recommendations: Hmmm. I'm not too big an SFF reader--the nuts at the LunaCon conventions took care of that for me, really--but one read I'm getting through its trilogy is THE CRYSTAL DOOR series. It's pretty durned good. I'm still in the middle of book one and plan to read the other two. It's YA and holds a bit of magical elements to it. Tiniest bit of romance, too, nothing sappy, jarring or silly. I'm impressed. And for me to be impressed with SFF like this, it's good stuff.
Writing references I'd recommend--poke my blog entries to find out! *smiles* On those, I'm like Tommy in The Who's "Pinball Wizard" I find them by sense of smell *smirk*
~Missye
Lovely Easter weekend to you, too. :)
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