Sunday, June 23, 2013

Halfway There

I passed the 50,000 words mark in book 4.  And yet I feel like I still have SO much more ground to cover.  A lot of that 50k is rewrites; a lot of it is going to get cut.  I have to read through it and see if there's anything I can keep, anything that still applies or just moments I like and want to use.  But I'm sure a lot of it is just going to go.  The story has changed too much.  But what's going into Word now, I think is better.  I hope the reader will feel that way too.

As I sit at my bar writing, Sharif is making dinner - I like this set up.

Just watched that new Miley Cyrus video - I prefer her backyard sessions, but I also don't see what all this fuss is about with this new thing.  I'm kinda indifferent - both the song and the video are just sort of blah.  But I don't think any young-girl-trying-to-be-hardcore display will ever top Fiona Apple's "Criminal" video for me.  That one made me feel like I was watching something I shouldn't be.

Anyway, I'm almost done reading CLOCKWORK PRINCESS by Cassandra Clare.  I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the last of this series; I never really know with Clare's works as she sort of tends to just keep going.  I like her writing a lot, the book is fast-paced even though you look back and realize not much has happened, but she always seems to have something infuriating about her characters that, while in the midst of, you have no idea how she's going to pull them out of it.  Like the whole brother-sister business in The Mortal Instruments and now this love-triangle hoopla in Internal Devices.  I know in writing, you let the story take you were it wants to go and you want to take the reader someplace they haven't already been, but sometimes as you are typing, at least for me, there's a moment of "Is this going too far?  Will I be able to pull this back or pull this off?"  I don't see how Clare can do that with the point in the book I'm at now.  I don't know how I can continue sympathy for the characters or certainly respect.  But we'll see.  She's a great writer and a great storyteller and her books, her characters continue to draw me to them, hang around in my head when I'm away from them and that's what I think all writers hope to achieve.

Okay, back to book 4 of my own.  Will keep you posted.


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