I finished Valiant by Holly Black recently. Hoo boy, I will not count the ways I didn’t like that one! I just hope it hasn’t put me off Holly Black forever, because I wanted to read The Spiderwick Chronicles eventually.

The Curse of Chalion was excellent. Lois McMaster Bujold has such a way with characters. They all seem so real, yet she doesn’t fall into the trap of “naturalism” where everything is negative and ugly in an attempt to seem “realistic”. This book had a well-developed plot that seemed to flow naturally from character motivation. It’s different than anything else I’ve read yet.

I started reading Alphabet of Thorn last night by Patricia A. McKillip, but it was very late so I only got to about page eight. It was hard to put down though; fascinating from the start as always!

Only two more books to go for the Mythopoeic Award Challenge, counting the book above (I think I’ve changed my list like five times or more now). I’m cutting it close, and on my own challenge, too! :-o

Amelia Windrose is one of five students at a vast and almost empty English boarding school on a sprawling country estate where faculty outnumber students, and each student possesses a remarkable ability: Victor can rearrange matter, Quentin is a warlock, Colin can change things to be as he desires, Vanity can locate secret passages, and Amelia herself can see into the fourth dimension. The faculty themselves are a peculiar lot with their own secrets, and the students view them as enemies in their goal to determine who and what Amelia and her friends really are.

I read some reviews of this book in advance, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Yes, there are some mild sexual situations. Yes, there is a naughty schoolgirl spanking scene. Other than that, I don’t know what the fuss is; ladies, are we really so missish that a couple of risque scenes in a book written for grown-ups bothers us? Please. I thought the book—questionable scenes included—were good fun. Fun is what this book is about, and even when the exposition gets heavy and there are more names (and aliases) and in-depth discussions of the nature of the fourth dimension and beyond thrown at you than you think you can handle, the story is gripping enough to carry you through.

I didn’t know authors were still allowed to write books this imaginative. Orphans of Chaos is a boarding-school story all grown-up, with all the fantasy and sensawunder of the glory-days of pulp fiction, deep mythological roots that will have you reaching time and again for your favourite mythology reference (or Wikipedia if that’s your thing), a female narrator whose voice rings true and whose intellect must be called “ageless” rather than merely precocious, and a setting that seems both contemporary and dislodged from time.

Verdegris, however, is still in its beginnings, and I’m having to fight the urge to back over and over previous scenes to correct, remove, change or otherwise edit the heck out of what I’ve already written. “Oh, but this scene needs to do more!” “This one is slowing things down.” “This feels too much like the scene following.” In otherwords, endless methods for procrastination that feel like writing. I need to just get the story written.

Holly’s lessons on middles are encouraging. I especially like the one on taking stock of your story somewhere in the middle to see if it’s headed in the direction you wanted it to, whether it’s changed shape so much that it’s actually a different story than you planned, and whether that’s okay with you. The stuff about putting “surgical marks” on your story to plan for later edits should keep me from getting overly distracted by perpetual revision as I work. Kind of wish I’d read it sooner.

My recent bookmarks:

The Swivet: Guest blogger Matthew Cheney: “If Only I’d Known: Writing Advice to My Younger Self”

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View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

My recent bookmarks:

alden.nu - Resources for Writers

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alden.nu - Lessons in Writing

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View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

My recent bookmarks:

How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method

Tags: writing, foxywriter

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia