I answered the story questions that needed answering after the last question I answered was answered. I think I’m nearly ready to write the first draft. The only problem I’m having with my outline at this point is that I don’t feel like the ending is very strong; I want to have a defining image, and nothing I’ve already got strikes me as being powerful enough.

Something tells me that I need to look at the conflict in question through the villain’s eyes, to see what the villain would do, the lengths they would go to in order to win, and that I’ll find my defining image there. That’s a toughie for me. Even after receiving pointed remarks personally from Holly Lisle in one of her Q&A emails, I’m having trouble with this whole “get into your villain’s head” issue. Holly doesn’t know, I am all sunshine and bunnies! (Well, except to people who think they can be rude to me because I’m short. For them, NO MERCY.)

I may need to write my ending first. Usually, things come clear when I write at least a sketch of my ending. Maybe I’ll write it from the villain’s point-of-view this time? That way, not only do I have the villain’s perspective, but it won’t be the same scene I actually write in the end so I won’t feel like I’ve told the story already. Now there’s an idea . . .

Ecto doesn’t seem to want to use Wordpress tags, and Technorati tags are of no use to me whatsoever, so I guess I’ll stick with using the WP admin cp until a better alternative surfaces.

Today’s Booking Through Thursday:

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?

Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?

I haven’t noticed a difference. I’m heading into a phase where I’m reading a lot more fiction than non-fiction, but I think that may be out of necessity rather than a seasonal adjustment. I’ve read so many history books for research that I’m just plain tired of them for now (I’m sure this is temporary), and it’s been so long since I read a lot of fiction, that I’m starving for some entertainment. I suppose, if anything, in Spring I tend to want to read shorter books in general, but since I’m tackling my To-Be-Read pile I don’t think I can be choosy. I’m going to finish up Orphans of Chaos next, which is of moderate length, but after that I’m reading Spirit Gate, since Shadow Gate is out now. After that it’s Talyn so I can read Hawkspar when it comes out. Then, I think, Hood so I can read Scarlet, which I’m reading for the What’s In a Name Challenge (see a pattern here?) So whatever I may wish, I’m not looking at a slim, streamlined reading list for Spring.

A quick Booking Through Thursday:

I’ve always wondered what other people do when they come across a word/phrase that they’ve never heard before. I mean, do they jot it down on paper so they can look it up later, or do they stop reading to look it up on the dictionary/google it or do they just continue reading and forget about the word?

If I can get the gist from the context, I may make a mental note to look it up later, and then forget about it forever, most likely. Occasionally, though, I run across a word that just can’t figure out, and it those cases it’ll drive me crackers until I get up and find it in a dictionary. On extremely rare occasions, even the dictionary is no help. While reading Psychic Dictatorship in America (an exposé of the I AM Activity cult written in the 1930s) I pondered and pondered the phrase “precipitated dinners”. I mean, it either means they ate really fast, or the dinners were going to be “rained down from the heavens” or something. Considering the subject matter, I’m voting for the latter. Even looking it up online, I only found more references to Psychic Dictatorship in America.

I know a couple of different people who even as teenagers kept dictionaries next to their beds. I always thought this was a good idea, but never managed to get into the habit.

Another meme, this one created by Hoshichan!

Since nobody I know is insanely rich, I’m sure everyone here has a few books they’re aching to buy… but are suffering from a cash shortage. Post a list of your five most-wanted books (I’m doing fiction, feel free to list non-fiction if you wish) and why you’re so eager to read them!

1. The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle.
   The beautiful cover caught my attention first, but like a lot of people who frequent Holly’s site, I’ve been following her progress with the Moon & Sun series and I’m dying to read the first volume.
2. Joie de Vivre by Robert Arbor.
   “Simple French Style for Everyday Living.” I am currently obsessed with French lifestyle, and this one is interesting to me because it focuses on French lifestyle in general and not just the lives of French women.
3. The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt.
   Only available for pre-order yet, but I can’t wait to try out this book set in a “fantastical Dickensian clockwork universe”.
4. Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion, and Great Houses by Lucy Worsley.
   This book follows the life of William Cavendish, the consummate Cavalier. Doubly to be desired because Lucy Worsley is the chief curator of Britain’s Historic Royal Palaces.
5. Richard and John: Kings at War by Frank McLynn.
   “Too late to be known as John the First, he’s sure to be known as John the Worst . . .” Richard I is my favourite British monarch, and I bet Prince John really was a thumb-sucker. Okay, maybe not. Either way, this book will be mine.

Today’s Booking Through Thursday:

Here’s something for Valentine’s Day.

Have you ever fallen out of love with a favorite author? Was the last book you read by the author so bad, you broke up with them and haven’t read their work since? Could they ever lure you back?

The one author I can really say I intentionally stopped reading because I no longer liked her books is Jude Deveraux. She was one of the only romance authors I enjoyed enough to pick up each book as it came out, and she used to write medievals, my favourite subgenre. Sometime after time-travel romance A Knight in Shining Armor (not immediately, but shortly thereafter) she switched over almost completely to contemporary paranormal romances; I do not like them, Sam-I-am. Maybe it’s because I have strong ideas about the supernatural, but I usually find paranormal romances silly and boring. It’s just one of those things. Anyway, I can understand wanting to change your focus as a writer, and I wish her well, but I don’t like reading her work anymore.

Orson Scott Card has some interesting things to say about the writers’ strike (scroll past the review of National Treasure). Read it if you want to know what the writers are so worked up about.

“Studios create nothing. They just decide which scripts to make and pay for them. This is all well and good in a capitalist society — but the copyright law is not a corporate welfare plan, it’s a device to encourage creativity. The studios don’t have any creativity — the writers do. So the law should be shaped to encourage writers, not the studios that steal from them.”

Here’s an interesting idea: AnthologyBuilder, where you choose stories to be printed in your own personal anthology, which is then shipped to you in the form of a trade paperback. All the stories are reprints from paying publications.

(via Janni Lee Simner.)

Fantasy Book Critic has posted the Spotlight for January, featuring books to be released over the course of the month.

“Fans of urban fantasy/paranormal romance, YA, and vampires should especially be happy :) No matter what floats your boat though, if January is any indication, then 2008 looks to be another exciting year for lovers of speculative fiction!”

I am not a big fan of urban fantasy and paranormal stuff, but even so, there are quite a few interesting titles coming out this month. Titles I’m personally wanting to check out are The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick and Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost.

Dark Roasted Blend has posted an interview John C. Wright, author of The Golden Age and other novels. Compelling, witty stuff of the sort that gives me that little tingle at the back of my neck indicative of a kindred spirit.

“I would venture to say that if you are reading a yarn where there are no space-pirates and no space-princesses, if the Dinosaurs of Mars never make an appearance, if no space-marine shoots through the core of the planet with a hand-weapon in order to kill an enemy standing on another continent, if no ancient alien artifacts larger than worlds stir into life after a million years of dormancy, and if not a single planet is blasted into molten asteroids, no star into a nova star, no galaxy into a Seyfert galaxy, no universe into a new Big Bang, then what you are reading might not be space opera. Space opera should contain at least one of these elements.”

Reputable news-source The Onion has an article about that Harry Potter or whatever his name is.