Question of the Day…

What are your favorite books and why? What puts them at the top of the list for you? Is it the characters, a character that you wish you could be or who's actions make you think, "wow, that's exactly how I would deal with the situation." Maybe it's the plot … you're that person who is interested in a really good spy/intrigue plot that has a create twist ending. Is it how the book is written and by that it I mean, you look at it and say things like, "what a great choice of words to describe…" or "the authors ability to write stream of conscience is incredible." Could it be the "moral" of the book? Is it that you have to work hard to read it, or on the opposite end, that it's an easy read? What makes you like the books you like?

For me, I'm partly ashamed to admit this, but one of the top things that are important to me is genre. I like Fantasy. I like reading it and I like writing it, so that is really important to me. I like a good character, someone I can relate with and understand their motivation. I like books that hit me hard at the end and by this I mean that I feel like cheering or crying because of the climatic event the book has been written around. I like good dialogue versus good exposition and description.

So you tell me – what are your favorite books and why?

The Novel and Point of View…

    I will have an update to the progress bar a little later today. Last night, I was up until midnight writing using a laptop while in bed, listening to music via an Ipod, while my wife slept next to me. Other then jacking up my back a little, I have to say I enjoy working late on the book. I didn't really want to go to sleep last night because I thought I was a hitting a stride, but I had the money paying job in the morning, and I didn't want to drag myself out of bed and suffer the rest of the day.

I'm curious if anyone has an opinion on how I'm changing points of view within the book. Most of the things I've written in the past, I've used third person. But with Whitaker's story, I wanted something more personal, so I chose first person to allow the reader a little more insight into the character. The only problem was that once I got into the writing the story, I really felt the need to show some other scenes that didn't involve Whitaker, scenes that I felt necessary to move the plot in the story. So I wrote those scenes in third person. The other thing I decided to do was show some flashbacks of Whitaker's youth and how he got to where he is now. I needed to delineate between flashback and current time line and I felt the best way to do that was again to change to third person. Over the last year or so I have read all of Jim Butcher's Dresden books and I really enjoy them. They are really quick reads written in first person. The one thing that drives me crazy about them is that I would really like to understand more of Harry Dresden's past. So it was the major impetus behind me deciding to add flashbacks.

    So I guess my question is whether or not switching from first person to third person is too harsh a transition?

The More and More I Read…

The more excited I get about writing.

In the last couple of days I have added a couple of more chapters, things that people really haven't seen before. I'm sure they are rough and need some editing but I'm just excited to get it all out there. What most people don't know is that I have like 20 some odd chapters written so far, and I think I'm about 40% done with the first draft. 40%= 50K words so far, which means that I'm going to come in around 120K words… which is about what I was hoping for.

If there are people out there who are reading this … please, please, please post. Tell me if you don't like something, tell me if stuff doesn't work. I want to make this as good as I can.

DAMN THEM!!!

Last night my wife, daughter and I all went out to get some ice cream at the new Baskin Robbins down the street from our house. We walked in and I started looking around for my usual… Daiquiri Ice. It's so delicious and is one of the few sweets I crave in this world. So there I am, wandering back and forth in front of freezer, with each passing second becoming more and more like a caged lion at the Hoogle Zoo who knows it only has 3 more months to live, because after all it is the Hoogle Zoo. Finally I turn to the teenage girl behind the counter and ask why I can't see the Daiquiri Ice anywhere, to which she replies, "They have discontinued it." Yes that's right they have discontinued my favorite ice cream. Damn them. Damn them all. (Picture me in a Charlton Heston/ Planet of the Apes pose) I'm telling you the Baskin Robbins executive who made this decision is going to Hell and the only way he can redeem himself is by putting it back on the shelf.

Sigh. I'm just depressing myself thinking about it. Last two posts haven't been about writing. I promise tomorrow will be!!

Also on the plate tomorrow… how the creator of Monster stole my idea for a really cool obituary web site… you think I am crazy, but I have proof that I came up with the idea several months ago.