Surfin' Saturday

My original intent to post was to give a hard time to those of you who haven't updated your blogs in a week or so, but then I noticed that my last post was nearly a month ago. (those who live in glass houses...) Hence, I've decided to just give a quick book review.

Just read A MANKIND WITCH by Dave Freer last night. As I read it, I was thinking, hmm... this reminds me of Charles. (Sword fights, fantasy creatures, a bit of romance interwoven into the plot.) :)

I found the book in the Sci-fi section of the library, though I'd hardly call it science fiction - more fantasy/adventure. I didn't even expect to enjoy it--and I'll reveal my bias here--because the cover looked as if it were geared more toward males. Teenage males, in particular. Nevertheless, I liked the title, so I brought it home. (Notice my thoughtful reasoning.)

The book is part of the "Heirs of Alexandria Series" (which I didn't discover until I got it home - also includes collaboration with Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint) but it can stand alone. In spite of a few anachronisms, a typo and a couple of areas of awkward pacing, I enjoyed it. If you'd like to actually know what it's about, you can go here because I'm too lazy to type all that in. :)

Ok, now that I've updated my blog, what are the rest of you waiting for? Stop selfishly living your real life and understand that there are those of us out here who have no lives, thus must live vicariously through you. Where are you Avery? Susan? Jon? There were a couple of others, but they've posted this past week. Stewart, you're on thin ice. I know it has only been 4 days, but in the Cult of Sternberg, that's like 2 weeks to the rest of the world. Sid's been slacking a bit lately too.

Taking a Break

After a long week (I was trying to cut back my hours and somehow ended up working more), I've decided to go on a short break from blogs for a while. The dust-bunnies around here are biting my ankles, I still have boxes to unpack that arrived last month (oh, the shame), my day job is killing me and my daughter is sick. Time to get my butt away from the computer and pay attention to real life.
Darn it.
Maybe I'll start percolating ideas again if I'm lucky.
So, I'll see you all around in a week or so. Until then--GO BEARS, and have a great week everyone. I'll miss you. :)

Conflict, Research & Procrastination

I looked through my old files recently to see if there were any stories worth resurrecting and found eleven (count 'em--eleven!) that I had started but didn't finish. They all had something in common: I stopped working on them because I couldn't come up with a good external conflict, and decided that I needed to do more research before I could finish them.

You see, I hate conflict. I've spent my entire life avoiding it as much as possible. I mean, really, actively avoiding it. That makes it hard for me to write it--I don't even want to face it in my fiction.

Now, internal conflict, I have no problem with--my characters have plenty of that. But as far as I've seen, very few books sell on the sole basis of internal conflict. It's important, sure, but they still have to do something. Something has to happen, darn it. They need jobs, lives, external conflicts. Sadly, that always throws me. That's when I say, "Oh, well, I need to do some more research on this" and move on to the next exciting character.

As in real life, I avoid conflict like the plague. My stories may be rich in character, but they're painfully poor in plot.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is it just me? Makes me feel like I shouldn't even attempt to write. The most common advice I see when there's a plot stall is to kill a character, but obviously those people are missing my point. I like these characters--I don't want them to suffer. I don't want them to run for their lives and have to save the world with only a stick of gum and a shoelace. (Especially since I don't know why they have to run for their lives and whom they're running from--I'd have to do a little research on that and get back to it.)

Unfortunately, the market for character driven, introspective "quiet stories" is as thin as my plots. What's a cowardly gal to do?