Greetings! :D
Yeah, I put on a little happy face at the end of my greeting... it's a little tactic I like to call "fake it 'till you make it"...
It's interesting to see the fallout from yesterday's kerfuffle over my off-hand comments about Ms. Fallon's book... I guess the silver lining in it all is that she got three more new readers out of it! Abbie, Crystal and Logan all want to read her book now -- I presume to see if I'm off my rocker or not... I know what my vote is!
Thanks to Paula for defending me over on the author's blog, but really, I think I deserve all the heat. Crystal's right - I should be a little more tactful next time I feel the urge to express disapproval of/dissatisfaction over a particular author's work, since apparently it's pretty easy for it to get back to him or her, using something called "Google Alerts" or some such. But I've lambasted other authors much harder this year, and apparently, if they read it, they couldn't care less. I mean, as luke-warm as I feel about this author's style, I'd much rather read her than anything else by Scott Bakker or Daniel Abraham.
I guess that could segue into this question... can a person accurately judge an author's writing style based on a hundred pages? 50? After the first page? I have a book on writing called The First Five Pages (Lukeman) that stresses the elements that a manuscript needs in order to have the best chance of succeeding (and getting published), and that these elements, by necessity, need to be apparent in the first five pages, since "agents and editors receive and reject hundreds of manuscripts each month." Your literary acumen needs to be evident straight away, in other words, or your risk of being immediately rejected is high. I suppose that must just apply to new authors rather than published authors.
Honestly, though I will now keep reading the first book and issue a review, I don't know that my assessment of her style, at least as far as how it agrees/disagrees with me, will change. I doubt she'll flower into Pat Rothfuss before the book ends, in other words. Still, that's just me and my tastes... apparently there are plenty of people that find her work not only acceptable, but very satisfying. Hey, go for it. I'll be keen to see what others here think of it.
The funny thing is, I was just going to toss it on the shelf and never give it a thought again... now we're all talking about it. Perhaps that was her strategy from the outset! If so, you gotta admit, it's a successful one...
Shifting gears...
Today's post on the blog 1,000 Awesome Things was amusing... perhaps you should go check it out, eh!
My computer guru pal Carey was supposed to come over today to attempt to cure my sick computer, but he no-showed. He wanted to come Thursday instead, but I think I'll just take my computer in to Vye Wednesday, as I originally planned, and let him nuke it. I'm still weighing the pro's and cons of retiring the rig and having Vye build a new one. I'll need to decide soon, for it to be a tax write-off for 09. I was at the mall today, eying the iMac... beautiful creatures... the 22" one is $1200, which is a bit more than I'd want to spend... but it could boot in Mac or Windows, which means I could sell my old iMac and my old system and recoup a bit of the dough... bah, who knows. I'm always looking for reasons to buy new gear. The smart thing would be to wait and see how the current situation with my work rig resolves itself before making any decisions.
Then again, I'm not exactly known for doing the smart thing...
Went to the mall for our anniversary tonight and split a chili-burger at Red Robin. Yay. What fun. Well, I suppose the 19th anniversary ain't supposed to be all that. Next year should be interesting... I'll turn 40 and we'll have our 20th anniversary. Sounds like two good reasons to have Scrabble parties...
Well, it could be worse... I could be this guy...
I guess I'll pack it in for the night. Rug Shop Day tomorrow, with all the joy that entails! Actually, it's a good gig. Until tomorrow, remember, 'big' doesn't even sum it up, right? That word 'big' is so small...
2 comments:
Amazing how Pat Rothfuss and Brandon Sanderson have completely changed the way I look at books. What I might once have enjoyed before reading Name of the Wind I now find dull and trite, usually. Oh well.
Aye, I've never heard of a Google Alert either.
I have Google Alert and it's quite annoying since it sends me everything that include both of my names, which almost never refer to me. :)
FYI- I didn't put my two cents in over at whats-her-faces blog because I thought you needed defending, (you, being the big-boy)but because I found what she wrote in her blog and in the comments was extremely juvenile and unprofessional (both of which she accused you of). If her only motive was to "help you," a private message would've more than sufficed. Anyway, sorry if I made matters worse, I just couldn't help myself.
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