Bloggle

Okay… so I do judge books by their covers. Truth be told, lots of us do. So many, in fact, that Borders are now rearranging all their book stores to show more covers even though they’ll take a hit on how many titles they can carry.  

But I digress.

I’d been hearing good things about Patrick Rothfuss, and his first novel, The Name of The Wind packs a list of blurbs both admiring and credible — blurbs from authors I admire — as long as my arm. I read the excerpt on Patrick’s web site. I liked his humor… what’s more I liked the story. 

I place an order at Amazon and they ship me… this. And I can’t help but think something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. This isn’t the book I ordered. That one had blowing leaves, and a stone man’s face and mystery and… dignity. It didn’t have a shirtless, I-want-to-be-Fabio-when-I-grow-up red-headed step-child on the cover. It didn’t look like an overripe romance novel. 

As for the author, I imagine Patrick Rothfuss has neither time nor inclination to be particularly mortified by this cover… The Name of The Wind is in its fifth printing — and its third cover.  

And the book? Despite the cover, it’s quite a good read. I’d love to have a word or two with Patrick on how it came together; there’s bits and pieces here and there that strike me as a bit out of joint with the story — perhaps the result of editorial fiat — but it’s first and foremost a really solid bit of storytelling and an impressive feat of world-building. It’s a high-fantasy novel, yes, but one anchored by solid rules: magic — the unruly and unbalancing bugbear of many a tale — has costs, and consequences. 

Final assay? An annoying cover. But a good read.   

Related: What kind of input to authors have to their cover art? Depends. Here’s one author’s point of view.

2 Comments »

It’s funny… For a long time I thought about sitting down and writing some fiction. And while I was thinking about it, I picked up a number of books about writing. You know… a small library of them. Now that I’m no longer thinking about writing fiction, but actually doing it, well… those books — most of ‘em anyway — strike me as a little hollow. There’s only two of them, really, that I can flip through today and say with confidence, “this is something useful.”

The first of these — Conflict, Action & Suspense, by William Noble — proved to be an eminently practical and useful “how-to” sort of book. I’m pretty certain there’s nothing in this book that isn’t ably covered by your standard college-level “Creative Writing 101″ course… then again, I haven’t had that course.

The second is On Writing by Stephen King… which is really not a how-to book at all; it’s a bit of an attitude adjustment for those who think they might want to put some words on a page, and a gift, really, for those who will.

And a third is mostly for fun. Mind you, it’s chock full of good stuff on the business of writing, but John Scalzi’s irascible, sometimes caustic collection of essays, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop is largely Scalzi just, well… being Scalzi, through and through.

I can say with certainty that none of these books will help me write the Great American Novel. Quite the opposite; between them I’ve figured out that I don’t want to write the Great American Novel… I want to tell a wicked good story.

No Comments »

Firstly, to all the keyboard-thumping zombies who can barely string three words together to create a coherent sentence; to the editors who assemble those heaps and tumbles of barely literate detritus into paragraphs of prose; to the publishers who actually buy that crap, glue it together and place the shiny-bound and gilt pages in my book store for the singular purpose of infecting me with a terminal case of I can write better than this trash disease; let me say — with feeling — screw you. Screw you all.

And secondly, to all of you who have written subtle, character driven-fiction; those who have reached deep into the fabric of your imagination and snatched a sparse few threads from which you’ve woven together the bones and sinews of believable, candid and flawed people; to those who have breathed life into words and have led me to root for your protagonist, grind my teeth at your villains, hold my breath as I flip the page; thank-you. You have won my admiration and gratitude all over again.

Writing is easy. It’s just the bit with the words — the right words — that’s hard.

No Comments »

It’s November, and that means:

It’s Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month. That’s right friends and neighbors. You, too, can join the throng and discover just how much pure, unexpurgated drivel you dump in your word processor in just thirty days. Chart your progress as you throttle your muse… and hurry, there’s already 6 million words in the well!

And no… I won’t be participating. But only because I write plenty enough unedited drivel right here, thank-you.

No Comments »