In my opinion, this is not so much a twisted fairy tale as an example of how to write. I won’t get into all the gush-deconstruction with various adjectives and superlatives because it’s been done ad nauseam (by an agent, even!)
Bettie, if you see, this, please email me your Paypal account and I’ll PAY you for the privilege of having read it.
I stopped reading you when I was 17. There was a reason for this: I’d run through everything you’d ever written by that time and I was burnt out on you, so I went on to glomming my next author, whom I have also never read again. Lather, rinse, repeat throughout my life. Glom, abandon, glom, abandon. Yes, I am an evil reader.
Does anybody actually believe this without a boatload of qualifiers?
Over at Romancing the Blog, there was a very nice article about a mystery writer’s convention comparing and contrasting how that genre’s culture stacks up against the romance genre’s culture (including ebooks, my pet topic, but I’ll pimp that later elsewhere). I found this tidbit interesting:
The motivating keynote and luncheon speeches sounded just like the ones we hear at RWA, discussing how important it is to write your story, to finish the book, to be persistent, hone your craft, and if you keep at it, eventually you will succeed.
Er, no.
I have a buncha novels on my hard drive that have been sitting around collecting dust since, oh, 1990 some time, I guess. In ’93 I wrote one that got me an agent another that year that got me a contract—before they were shut down (because, according to the rumor at the time [get this] it was making too much money and it had been created to take a loss for tax purposes) (remember Kismet? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?); one in ’95 that got me an early-Saturday-morning phone call from Harlequin to pleasepleaseplease overnight the manuscript; and a fourth novel in ’98 that got me a different agent.
In the last week or so, it has become clear to me that the basic understanding quite a few people have of libertarianism is that of greed and selfishness. This surprises me because I thought most people had us figured for proponents of legalized marijuana and prostitution.
Angel Falling Softly
by Eugene Woodbury
published by Zarahemla Books
Perhaps I should admit upfront that I consider myself an undemanding reader. I’ll happily go wherever the author wants to take me as long as it’s logical, consistent, and interesting. Let me add that I don’t even particularly care whether a story is plot-driven or character-driven; give me something to chaw on intellectually and I’m good to go. Make me laugh and I’ll forgive almost anything.
This is one reason why, when I read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, I was highly annoyed. I like vampires. I’ve studied vampire myths since I fell in love with Vlad the Impaler somewhere in the early ’90s, so her inconsistent worldbuilding, her habit of telling rather than showing, and her mostly flat characterizations grated.
By contrast, Eugene Woodbury’s take is haunting. Poignant, even.
My husband and I went to see Rush last night. We had AWESOME seats.
There were two age demographics: late 30s and up and…their kids. The youngest I saw was sevenish, but if there was anybody there between the ages of mom-and-dad-forced-me-to-come and 30, I didn’t see them.
It was the most sedate audience of a hard-rockin’ concert I’ve ever been to, but then, most all of us were old and fat. No matter. By halfway through the second half I was ready to get laid.
