Sleeping giants and glacier speed

[webmonkeyjr]

Today was pretty good. It was nice to kind of reconnect with myself and with ancientsong, over lunch. We talked about each others books. Hers is finished…mine not. She asked what made my main character so special…and my response was that she was not. She isn’t a genius. She isn’t a wizard that doesn’t know she’s the most powerful wizard alive.

Comments

[ceosanna]

Cut it to pieces with LOOOOOVE.

In all seriousness, I'm glad you understand where all my notes are coming from.

[webmonkeyjr]

I do...I'm just a big baby and wanted it to be right the first time.

[ancientsong]

Harrumph. It won't be right the first time and it won't be right the second or third either. That's why they invented editing. Otherwise, all those editors would be out of work.

Seriously, though, I know it feels very personal because each and every word flowed out of your own sweat and blood. I get it. I really do. But, in the end, it's tons better if it gets edited, cut to ribbons and then made better than if you don't do it. It's like bug testing software. A software engineer/programming gives it to the tester with the idea that it's done or at least as best as can be right now. It's the bug tester's job to break it and then the programmer fixes the issues and the software is stronger for it. Same thing here.

[webmonkeyjr]

Hehe...we talked about that. I'm interested in seeing how it will evolve. I know that Douglas Adam's Hitch Hikers Guide sometimes severely varies from print to print.

[ancientsong]

It was awesome to see you and catch up. (I think I said that in my email too so I'm sorry I'm repeating myself).

As for your book, doggone it, I'm going to try and find time to read it. Can you forward the link to me again, please? Life is a bit hectic but for the first time in a long time I might be able to eek out time to read some fiction and yours will be it if I can manage to do it.

[webmonkeyjr]

I missed you too. I will do my best to get that to you soon. :)

[scbutler]

When I read the first books of folks who say it's easy, I usually find I'm unimpressed. The writing is often very good, because folks who write books easily generally seem to do so because they have a real talent for expressing themselves. But there's usually something missing, too. The heart, which you can only put in a book by getting in the mud and sweating it out with your characters. Without heart, sometimes a book can just seem glib.

Some folks like that sort of book though.

[webmonkeyjr]

This novel, so far, is not glib. My wife called it "the most organic story she's ever read", but she's also bias because I took out the trash and did the dishes in the same day.

I'm finding, in the mud and sweat with the characters, that they've become real people to me. They let me know when I'm taking them on a wrong turn and let me know when I've been away too long.

Terry Brooks said that "Writers live in two worlds-the real world of friends and family and the imaginary world of their writing". I'm proud to have a passport to both.

[scbutler]

Hope I didn't make it sound like I thought it was glib - from the way you're writing about it, it sounds just the opposite. If the characters are real, then you've probably got something really good going. It's them telling you that you're going the wrong way that can produce some really great writing. Though you can't trust them too much - sometimes they're just trying to distract you from what you and they both really need to spend some quality time working on.

[webmonkeyjr]

Hehe... I was talking about the same thing last night with my wife. If you're interested, I'd love you to read a few chapters and and see what you think.