(no subject)

[mrissa]

Finallyfinallyfinally, I have one of my stories for elisem done. The earrings called "'Oh, yeah?' said the rock sprite." have deserved a story since September, and now they have one, although the story is now called "The Opposite of Pomegranates." It may be a bit...umm...scattery. I guess we'll find out on the readthrough. But it's drafted, and I don't hate it any more, and I'm still glad to be moving back to Thermionic Night in all its wretchedness.

If I'm going to insist that I'm not a short story writer, I should probably stop writing short stories. But somebody gave me my whale who is named "Warded," and so I have to write her my modern Saami whaling story, because why else would I deserve my whale and its corresponding worldlet? And that's on the queue after "Singing Them Back" and "The Calculus Plague"* and the short story component of Someone's birthday present. (Someone's birthday isn't in February or even March, but I'm beginning to think I should put the story on the priority list before then: novels, oof. Also, Someone is not the same as the whale-giving somebody, whose birthday is yet more distant.)***

Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon is suffering from two things: one, it's a college fantasy novel (which I love) and is not Tam Lin****; two, it's got two main characters, and one suffers in comparison to the other. I care much more about one than the other. Which makes me nervous, because TN has two main characters, too, and what if people feel like this about my book? Because I feel like this about other people's books often. Eeeeeek.

We can worry about that tomorrow.

*Because I am still a science fiction writer, dammit. Just because fantasy keeps grabbing me, doesn't mean I'm not also a science fiction writer still. Right?**

**I seem to be bigger on footnotes these days. Maybe I should read some Terry Pratchett and get it out of my system. Heh. I borrowed still more books from porphyrin and dd_b this week already, and I have stuff on my own unread stack. Important stuff. So: not very likely.

***I don't actually have anything to say here, but if I did, would it be more appropriate to use *** or to use ** and have the footnote-on-the-footnote indicated by ***? My thought here is that if you read footnotes at all, you're going to read them in order. But there could be a convention I'm forgetting.

****This after Hand's other book suffered in comparison with The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Scribblies. What can you do.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Books with two main characters *always* suffer that way, I think. Stratford Man has Kit fans and Will fans. One-Eyed Jack has Tribute fans and Jackie fans. And even a few weirdos who would rather read about the spies.

Heels down, carry on, as Hannah would say. *g* These are reader things, that we cannot control, if we have made the characters as interesting as possible.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But while I often have a favorite between main characters (though not "*always*") or two plotlines, I don't always resent one of them for taking time away from the other.

Margaret Atwood is the worst for me. I read who knows how many of her books before I got mad at her and quit, a good dozen at least, and there were maybe two where I didn't actively hate half the book. HATE. And I knew that if the half I hated was irrelevant, she probably woudln't have written it, so I didn't feel I could just skip it. But oh. The hatred.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I live in fear of that, too.

Alas.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I tend to to the same thing, and get impatient with one plotline if it's taking me away from characters I really want to read about. Usually not outright resentful, though.

I'm glad to see another person who liked The Sun, The Moon, And the Stars - I thought it was a Brust that a lot of people didn't like. But, in a classic example of the above, I skip right past the Hungarian fairy tale, which means I'm probably missing a big point of Brust's.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It could be that it's a Brust a lot of people didn't like. I don't know. Myself, I'm very few people, most days.

No offense, I swear

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

But you hurt my brain sometimes...

Re: No offense, I swear

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not offended! Imagine what it's like to live in here.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Is one of the characters in Waking the Moon really dispicable? While I have frequently vastly preferred one POV character to another, I haven't really resented chapters from a particular character's point of view unless they really sucked. I'm talking in and of themselves, not just "compared to cool characters."

Everything from a female POV in the Wheel of Time, for example. :P Before I gave up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Umm. She's not pleasant certainly, but I wouldn't describe her as despicable.

I'm just cranky, probably.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Do you get paid by the asterisk*?

*Just wondering.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, "The Calculus Plague". Me likes Maths.

(Pictures numbers, curves, and greek letters burrowing into people's skulls. Eating brains...)