![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A hunkering, labyrinthine mania
Oct. 17th, 2005 11:54 amI'm in the midst of book packing frenzy and I'm still buying books. Not many, just a couple, but clearly, I have a mania. I ordered a book from Amazon because I realized in packing up that I had book 2 and 3 of the series but not 1--and I had to complete the set right now, didn't I?? I felt like going on to the next book in a series I've been reading in the hour before I collapse into bed at night, so I picked that up. I will probably be picking up the sequel to a book I finished last week. I wasn't sure I'd continue with the sequel because of problems with the first book—a slow and impressive build of world and character followed by a rushed and nearly passive action closer—but I find I can't stop thinking about a certain character and I thought I really should try to exorcise that private demon. And I ordered a book on labyrinths because I am researching them for a novel and because a friend and I are thinking of building one in her garden.
(Did you know most people have it wrong about labyrinths? They aren't the things where you wander around and get lost--those are mazes. Mazes are designed to fool and are left-brain puzzlers to be figured out; labyrinths have one way in and one way out and are a path meant to be walked for contemplation. The Minotaur was not actually in a labyrinth but in a maze. Labyrinths are places where you walk a sacred path to get into a meditative state--like they have at Chartres or Grace Cathedral in San Francisco or the Nazca lines or Celtic burials or . . . well, there are a bunch of them around the world, some ranging back millennia to pagan times. Christian and pagan, pretty much every religion or way of knowing has some form of the labyrinth. I will not be using labyrinths in the maze sense in my novel, but in the meditative sense.)
(But I digress.)
And speaking of rushed and passive action sequences...that next book in the series I've been reading had a similar problem in the opening pages. I couldn't help wondering if these sequences in the ending of one book and the beginning of another weren't a result of being forced to edit down a ms. from a larger size to one more acceptable to the present publishing climate? I suppose it could just be writers' fatigue and rushing to get things over with, but I've noticed that rushed, passive action thing happening in quite a few books lately. I can't decide if it's a symptom of the publishing environment or if I'm just noticing that sort of thing more these days. What really cheeses me off is that I think in both cases it would have been so easy to fix--just make the verbs more active, make the POV slightly more immersive. In the casing of the ending sequence it felt rather like coitus interruptus after that long, careful build. In the case of the opener, it just felt sloppy and tired.
You can't have everything, I guess.
And about all I'm doing these days is hunkering down to write and hunkering down to pack. I'll try to sneak in some crits when I can, but I have to focus my priorities on finishing Night Warrior and in getting moved.
Oh, and Night Warrior is probably going to be called Midnight Ragas in the second draft, for reasons which will become apparent...in the second draft. (It will take some twiddling which I don't have time for right now. Must. Finish.) For right now, it's staying Night Warrior.
And I can't help wondering if NW is going to have a rushed and passive action sequence in order to Get. This. F-er. Done. *sigh*
(Did you know most people have it wrong about labyrinths? They aren't the things where you wander around and get lost--those are mazes. Mazes are designed to fool and are left-brain puzzlers to be figured out; labyrinths have one way in and one way out and are a path meant to be walked for contemplation. The Minotaur was not actually in a labyrinth but in a maze. Labyrinths are places where you walk a sacred path to get into a meditative state--like they have at Chartres or Grace Cathedral in San Francisco or the Nazca lines or Celtic burials or . . . well, there are a bunch of them around the world, some ranging back millennia to pagan times. Christian and pagan, pretty much every religion or way of knowing has some form of the labyrinth. I will not be using labyrinths in the maze sense in my novel, but in the meditative sense.)
(But I digress.)
And speaking of rushed and passive action sequences...that next book in the series I've been reading had a similar problem in the opening pages. I couldn't help wondering if these sequences in the ending of one book and the beginning of another weren't a result of being forced to edit down a ms. from a larger size to one more acceptable to the present publishing climate? I suppose it could just be writers' fatigue and rushing to get things over with, but I've noticed that rushed, passive action thing happening in quite a few books lately. I can't decide if it's a symptom of the publishing environment or if I'm just noticing that sort of thing more these days. What really cheeses me off is that I think in both cases it would have been so easy to fix--just make the verbs more active, make the POV slightly more immersive. In the casing of the ending sequence it felt rather like coitus interruptus after that long, careful build. In the case of the opener, it just felt sloppy and tired.
You can't have everything, I guess.
And about all I'm doing these days is hunkering down to write and hunkering down to pack. I'll try to sneak in some crits when I can, but I have to focus my priorities on finishing Night Warrior and in getting moved.
Oh, and Night Warrior is probably going to be called Midnight Ragas in the second draft, for reasons which will become apparent...in the second draft. (It will take some twiddling which I don't have time for right now. Must. Finish.) For right now, it's staying Night Warrior.
And I can't help wondering if NW is going to have a rushed and passive action sequence in order to Get. This. F-er. Done. *sigh*