A day of rest?
Truer words never spoken.
As I write this post, there are currently hailstones banging against my windowpane… yes, that plague-against-Egypt hail, so forgive me if this post is brief due to pending apocalypse; soon I have to call up old girlfriends and make sure they didn’t secretly give birth to my firstborn son. I’m going to need lots of Irish coffee today.
Seriously though, its my day off and I need to trudge through some of this backlog in books I have to finish and start, not to mention working on my own writing. Almost done The Dragonbone Chair, which is the first book I’ve seen in a while that has a truly unlikely and reluctant hero. I also finally got my hands on Blake Charlton’s Spellwright, a new fantasy novel that has been getting some damn good press, notably about something that always enthralls me – a good magic system (and something I plan to discuss at length in a future post). When I reach that point in a certain fiction novel where the science or the magic thoroughly gets fleshed out for all to see usually decides whether or not I can really enjoy a book. A great story with a wobbly magic system is kinda like wearing a nice pair of shoes with a small stone in it to a party. Sure you have a good time, but when its over you realize it could have been better without a fucking rock distracting you.
I’m not so good with analogies.
I want to write some kick-ass fiction someday, so I will read everything. I consider it a lesson well learned, for better or worse in regards to book quality. For all other aspiring writers out there, most of you realize learning the mistakes from the worst is sometimes as good as learning from the best. This time around, I say check out The Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction & Fantasy, not because it says “Writer’s Digest”, but because its written by Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game – which if you haven’t read, spend the rest of Sunday doing so – and features insight and advice from other authors like Terry Brooks (another good author) and Sherrilyn Kenyon. It drops in hardcover on March 26th.
[...] Paper Spaceships checks out Spellwright and contemplates the importance of magic-systems: A great story with a wobbly magic system is kinda like wearing a nice pair of shoes with a small stone in it to a party. Sure you have a good time, but when its over you realize it could have been better without a fucking rock distracting you. [...]