How to Burn a Candle

Finishing a story holds exactly the same amount of joy as eating a giant bowl of peach shaved ice.

On Sunday morning, I finished a short story--the first thing I've finished since completing my first draft of Bull-Rushing the Ghost earlier this year. Of course, I've worked on plenty, and the short story is barely the length of two novel chapters in Heretic, but there's something about FINISHING a whole narrative that gives me a sense of accomplishment and slingshots me through the next few days.

This time was better than most, though. First, it was a story I'd been asked to write, so I was a but apprehensive about writing toward specifications. It turned out well enough, though. Second, it's the first thing I've completed since my Wiley Coyote-esque plunge over the cliff of creative overexertion.

About that cliff. Regular readers might have noticed I've neglected the blog over the past weeks. 20 days into NaNoWriMo, I waved the white flag. I could barely force myself to pick up pen or keyboard, and my utter exhaustion forced me to admit a fact I'd been trying to hide from myself: all year I've been burning the candle at both ends, trying desperately to balance a mentally-draining job with personal commitments, health issues, and the, frankly, alarming number of creative pursuits.

I write throughout the year, so while giving up on NaNo was a blow to my pride, it didn't hurt my page-count much. But I won NaNo the previous two years--in '10 because I was unemployed and had nothing better to do, in '11 because I guess I just had more energy. This year's defeat indicated larger problems.

I didn't realize how much I needed a break until I NaNo-Failed-To-WriMo.

So I took some time off. Three weeks, in fact. During that time I didn't try to write. Rather than trying to bend my protesting brain to the page, I cleaned, watched Netflix, slept, and read like a madwoman.

I'd forgotten how much I like reading. There was a reason I started this whole writing thing.

For anyone who's lit up both ends of the creative firecracker, I recommend bingeing on books.  I read serious books and "crunchy" books, YA and literary criticism, traditional and self-published, ebooks, audiobooks, paper, and hardback. I reread the Last Herald Mage trilogy. I finally read the latest Scott Lynch. I returned to Riverside. I even read an LGBT firefighter romance novel, which made me smile despite the "read that in a fanfic once" porn-industry sub-plot (yes, really). The binge reminded me how much I love falling into other worlds and stories, falling in love with characters like Atticus O'Sullivan, Wellington Books Esq., Deryn Sharp, Bard Stefan, Locke Lamora, and the Mad Duke Tremontaine.

Speaking of Wellington Books Esq...

I've finished the short story for +Tee Morris  and +Philippa Ballantine's The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Tales from the Archives, and it's currently out with a handful of alpha readers. I should be right on time with the first draft.

Finishing a story after what had felt like a creative drought left me feeling like I was soaring in a chariot pulled by a team of Nyan-cats, because it was a great reminder of what I could do when I wasn't stretching myself too thin.

So, I have two writing-related resolutions for 2013:

1. Read at least one book a week, no matter what kind.
2. Learn how to burn a candle: one end at a time, because there will still be enough light to see by.

What gives you a creative high? Have you burned the candle at both ends? What do you do to relax when you've overtapped your creative well? What are your creative New Years Resolutions?

Reading More than One Book at a Time

I can never read just one book at a time. I might pick up a book and finish it before I pick up another one, but I've always got a number of them going at any given time. At the moment, I've got the following books that I have either started or am part way through:

Name of the Wind
This is THE fantasy book of right now. Patrick Rothfuss's name is now spoken in the same reverent tones as George R. R. Martin or Brandon Sanderson. I'm about a quarter of the way through the audio book and liking it, though I suppose I have yet to get to the stuff that will make me really lose my mind over the book. Looking forward to it, but I'm having to break this book  up into several meals, so it might be a while.

I will say that, as someone whose nickname is "Scribe", I have a soft spot for Chronicler.

Code Name Verity
OMFG. I went through the first half of this book in two days. I hit the second viewpoint character and slowed down, but kept going because of how invested I was in the story. Then...then...well, if you've read it, you know. Let's just say that something happened that made me simultaneously want to rip the book in half and jump up and down.

Rip the book in half, because that's what it did to my HEART.

Jump up and down because, in my experience, when that sort of major craziness actually makes it to publication, it's because the ending will justify the heck out of it.

That said, I did have to pause the book because of a sudden need to reread The Hobbit.

The Hobbit
I first read the hobbit when I was about nine. I remember my brother had to read it for school and I picked it up and blazed through it when he was done. I didn't remember anything beyond the eagles. Then the second trailer was released (leaked - bwahahahaah!) and I suddenly had the need to reread it with Dr. Watson Martin Freeman running around as Bilbo in my imagination. Also, I couldn't remember what had actually...happened.

So yes. Took a break from the emotional TRAUMA of Code Name Verity to reread in preparation for December.


Sabriel
Still working through this. I really, really want to figure out why I'm not grabbed by this as much as both Raven and Skrybbi were convinced I would be. It may be because I've been doing most of my "reading" through audio recently, and the amount of time I devote to actually sitting down with a book is so scant that I have trouble devoting myself to a book that hasn't 100% grabbed me, like Verity.

I may call it a lost cause and get on with A Confusion of Princes, which I grabbed because the premise was...well...awesome.

Good Omens
Listening to this on audio as well, and because of someone on tumblr, I'm totally imagining Loki Tom Hiddleston as Crowley and Sherlock Holmes Benedict Cumberbatch as Axiraphael. I picked this up on Audible because I went to see Neil Gaiman at the Unchained Tour last night, and was listening in preparation. I'm really enjoying it, but can only take so much silliness at a time (I don't tend to read fiction that's so overtly comical...probably because there's so little tension it doesn't hold me).

Raven Boys
The new Maggie Steifvater book - I grabbed the Audible version of this, but I'm not really liking the reader. The main character is fun, but thus far it's hasn't grabbed me by the throat and shook me into the same kind of nostalgic love that Scorpio Races did. Still, not far in yet, so I'm going to brave the reader a bit more: I love the premise.

Note: I don't tend to have problems when books with female MCs are narrated by men, but this person's voice doesn't seem to fit the narration to me. Not just yet, anyway. It might end up being more apt later on.

The Privilege of the Sword
I waited for the sequel to Swordspoint to come out on Audible. Ellen Kushner even favorited my tweet and tweeted me back about it! Neil Gaiman was involved in putting together the audio for the first one, so I knew he would be involved in this one as well, but the surprise was Felicia Day, who is going to be doing the voice of the main character in the chapters that are "illuminated" with full-cast.

Do you read more than one book at a time? What are you reading right now? What made you pick it up or put it down?

I'm Alive!

Hey there, everyone! Just dropping in to reassure you that I have not been eaten by the zombies. I moved and started a new job, and my childhood just ended with the last Harry Potter movie installment. Mischief Managed. It has left me a bit drained of energy and free-time, so, I decided to devote what I had to my fiction writing instead of my blog.

BUT, I'm taking the bus to work, which has given me the perfect opportunity to do some reading. Luckily, I don't tend to get motion sickness from reading. So here are the books I've recently finished:

BEHEMOTH by Scott Westerfeld ***** The second book in the trilogy was excellent. I adore the main characters. Scott Westerfeld does something I think is very hard, which is writing from two characters' points of view and making them both so completely interesting that you're not bored by POV change. And it's a WWI alternate-history with steampunk bio-engineered airship-whales fighting against dieselpunk mecha. This second book got political, and the stakes got higher, and the characters got more conflicted and interesting. I'm seriously looking forward to the third installment, which comes out in September.

SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley ****1/2 The book was wonderful, glorious--the vampire book for people who don't like vampire books. But I wanted about five more pages after where she ended it which is why I hesitated to give it the final 1/2 star. I loved every bit of the last page. I just wanted a tiny bit more.

THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson **** MY lovely roommate brought home an ARC of this book from ALA, and I read it almost immediately. This is probably my favorite of Maureen Johnson's books, and I think she handled the supernatural element really well. I'm not afraid to admit I stayed up really late reading, because the first half of the book was a bit too scary to put down. Hey, it's about Jack the Ripper. And ghosts. I did find myself gravitating more toward two supernatural characters as love interests rather than the main character's hunky classmate.

Currently, I'm reading: "Red Sea under Red Sky" by Scott Lynch, "Sabriel" by Garth Nix, and one of Brandon Sanderson's original novels, which I'm reading on the Kindle for iPhone app.

Is it weird that I usually want to buy the novel again in paperback if I've liked it? Does anyone else do that?