My apologies for the long wait for this. I've been very involved in the fiction writing, when the time allows. I worked on Lying Swords and made some good progress. Ideas continue to pop up. At the same time I was constantly considering the changes needed for Saving Atlantis. And I finally got it. I understood what I needed to do to add to Atlantis herself and the expanded explanations of the motives of the villains. I also needed to divide a scene into two parts, with a change of scene inserted between to increase tension.
I was involved with a significant sub-story in Lying Swords when this revelation for Saving Atlantis come to me. I quit the one and went to the other and that's what I've been up to on the writing front for the last two weeks. I still have one small plot hole to fill in—it will only take a brief bit of dialog. The problem is where exactly to put that dialog? One of the things important in writing is the flow of the narrative. It must proceed smoothly, unless the author is intentionally going for a jarring and disjointed style. Which is as legitimate as any other, but not for this kind of story. So, that bit of dialog must be in the right place. And, I have to rewrite the ending, since what I had before was a good happy-ever-after Romance ending.
In the meantime, while working on the paranormal thriller, I continue to get ideas and solutions for the fantasy series. This is one of the reasons a writer should have more than one work in progress (WIP) going on at a time. If stuck on one the author can go to the other, and often ideas for the one can come while working on the other.
I also have a short story I'd like to write but that one is really on the back burner for now.
I mentioned last time that I'd picked up another Dean Koontz novel. This one is titled From the Corner of His Eye. I don't find it nearly as compelling as Life Expectancy for a couple of reasons.
For one, I think he's trying to do too much. I'm a little over half done and he's introduced enough characters and enough conflicts to make two stories. And so far some of the characters seem to be unnecessary, but they may show up again later so I'll have to wait and see if that "criticism" is valid.
Another reason is that he is really over-writing in this one.
Example: "The hospital was drowned in the bottomless silence that fills places of human habitation only in the few hours before dawn, when the needs and hungers and fears of one day are forgotten and those of the next are not yet acknowledged, when our flailing species briefly floats insensate between one desperate swim and another."
He has stuff like that throughout the book. As literary prose, it's beautiful. But as a part of this semi-horror, semi-mystical story I find it distracting and patience-wearing.
On the good side, Koontz has presented us with a character that is as hateful a psychopath as any, yet his appearance is not at all repulsive, his inhumanity is tempered with physical human weaknesses, and Koontz never tells us, as the narrator, that the character is a psychopath. He shows us, over and over again in his thoughts as well as his actions.
Koontz has also developed an interesting and new (to me, anyway) metaphysical condition in one of the important characters, a little boy named Bartholomew. "Barty" seems able to be in more than one place at a time, somehow, but exactly how is not yet clear.
Example: Agnes, Barty's mother, and Barty have gone to the cemetery to put flowers on her husband's/his father's grave. It began raining hard. When she and Barty got into the car, "She was sopping, shivering. Water streamed from her soaked hair, down her face, as she wiped her beaded eyelashes with one dripping hand." Then, a few paragraphs describing her turning on the heat for herself and her son, and emphasizing her soaked condition, Barty tells her that she needs the heat, not him..."Agnes saw that Barty was dry. Not a single jewel of rain glimmered in his thick dark hair...His shirt and sweater were as dry as if they had just been taken off a hanger and from a dresser drawer....'I ran where the rain wasn't,' he said."
When I finish this book I'll donate it to the Prairie du Chien public library, so if any of you in the vicinity are intrigued enough to want to read it, it will be available there...if that does you any good.
In connection with that, I urge everyone that reads to donate your books to your local library if you have no particular desire to keep them. By all means, build and maintain your personal library. Mine has expanded beyond the dimensions of my bookcase, and my wife's collection of cookbooks has likewise done the same to hers. But chances are that you'll acquire some books that you like (or don't) and have no interest in keeping. Of course you can donate them to Goodwill or The Salvation Army, or the DAV store, or you can donate them to your local library.
I sincerely hope I don't go this long until my next entry. Please feel free to put any questions or comments in the comments section of this site or the comments section of just this blog, or on one of my two Facebook pages: the regular one or the author's page. And don't hesitate to remind me to post another if you think it's been too long. Thank you for your attention.
And by all means, read!
I was involved with a significant sub-story in Lying Swords when this revelation for Saving Atlantis come to me. I quit the one and went to the other and that's what I've been up to on the writing front for the last two weeks. I still have one small plot hole to fill in—it will only take a brief bit of dialog. The problem is where exactly to put that dialog? One of the things important in writing is the flow of the narrative. It must proceed smoothly, unless the author is intentionally going for a jarring and disjointed style. Which is as legitimate as any other, but not for this kind of story. So, that bit of dialog must be in the right place. And, I have to rewrite the ending, since what I had before was a good happy-ever-after Romance ending.
In the meantime, while working on the paranormal thriller, I continue to get ideas and solutions for the fantasy series. This is one of the reasons a writer should have more than one work in progress (WIP) going on at a time. If stuck on one the author can go to the other, and often ideas for the one can come while working on the other.
I also have a short story I'd like to write but that one is really on the back burner for now.
I mentioned last time that I'd picked up another Dean Koontz novel. This one is titled From the Corner of His Eye. I don't find it nearly as compelling as Life Expectancy for a couple of reasons.
For one, I think he's trying to do too much. I'm a little over half done and he's introduced enough characters and enough conflicts to make two stories. And so far some of the characters seem to be unnecessary, but they may show up again later so I'll have to wait and see if that "criticism" is valid.
Another reason is that he is really over-writing in this one.
Example: "The hospital was drowned in the bottomless silence that fills places of human habitation only in the few hours before dawn, when the needs and hungers and fears of one day are forgotten and those of the next are not yet acknowledged, when our flailing species briefly floats insensate between one desperate swim and another."
He has stuff like that throughout the book. As literary prose, it's beautiful. But as a part of this semi-horror, semi-mystical story I find it distracting and patience-wearing.
On the good side, Koontz has presented us with a character that is as hateful a psychopath as any, yet his appearance is not at all repulsive, his inhumanity is tempered with physical human weaknesses, and Koontz never tells us, as the narrator, that the character is a psychopath. He shows us, over and over again in his thoughts as well as his actions.
Koontz has also developed an interesting and new (to me, anyway) metaphysical condition in one of the important characters, a little boy named Bartholomew. "Barty" seems able to be in more than one place at a time, somehow, but exactly how is not yet clear.
Example: Agnes, Barty's mother, and Barty have gone to the cemetery to put flowers on her husband's/his father's grave. It began raining hard. When she and Barty got into the car, "She was sopping, shivering. Water streamed from her soaked hair, down her face, as she wiped her beaded eyelashes with one dripping hand." Then, a few paragraphs describing her turning on the heat for herself and her son, and emphasizing her soaked condition, Barty tells her that she needs the heat, not him..."Agnes saw that Barty was dry. Not a single jewel of rain glimmered in his thick dark hair...His shirt and sweater were as dry as if they had just been taken off a hanger and from a dresser drawer....'I ran where the rain wasn't,' he said."
When I finish this book I'll donate it to the Prairie du Chien public library, so if any of you in the vicinity are intrigued enough to want to read it, it will be available there...if that does you any good.
In connection with that, I urge everyone that reads to donate your books to your local library if you have no particular desire to keep them. By all means, build and maintain your personal library. Mine has expanded beyond the dimensions of my bookcase, and my wife's collection of cookbooks has likewise done the same to hers. But chances are that you'll acquire some books that you like (or don't) and have no interest in keeping. Of course you can donate them to Goodwill or The Salvation Army, or the DAV store, or you can donate them to your local library.
I sincerely hope I don't go this long until my next entry. Please feel free to put any questions or comments in the comments section of this site or the comments section of just this blog, or on one of my two Facebook pages: the regular one or the author's page. And don't hesitate to remind me to post another if you think it's been too long. Thank you for your attention.
And by all means, read!
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