Dragon, Shadows, & Fragments

Reading: The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time, Book 2)

Robert Jordan passed away last September of a rare blood disease, with eleven of a planned twelve books written in his acclaimed The Wheel of Time series. I had never read them, and I might never have, had his wife not read Mistborn, and chosen Brandon Sanderson to finish what Mr. Jordan started.

Ever since I finished Elantris and Mistborn, I vowed to read everything that Sanderson ever penned, unless some future book disappoints me so completely as to sour me towards his writing forever. As The Well of Ascension proved that that day is far, far away (if it ever comes, God forbid), I realized that I'd never be able to read A Memory of Light without reading the other 11 books first. So, even as I picked up the books from Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series from Border's, I bought The Eye of the World (a rare $6.99 paperback in this brave new world filled with $7.99s) and figured it would be as good a read as any to bide my time until June 24th, when the fourth Nightrunner book would be released.

Well, simply put, it was.

It took Jordan the better part of the 800+ page book to get into his own, but by the end his was a terribly well-rendered world with distinct, memorable characters, and that wonderful sense of bigger things to come that lies at the core of every sprawling epic. I have heard opinions that Jordan's writing floundered a bit in the latter books, but the man's passion for his creation never waned; it is said he dictated the rough outline of what he foresaw for the last book from what would prove to be his deathbed. And knowing that Brandon Sanderson is the one who has been tasked with breathing life into that outline gives me great hope for what the ending of Jordan's epic might bring. He isn't the best at the craft, but he is a worthy mentor all the same, and the world is just a bit dimmer for his passing so early (for what are the mid-fifties in the 21st century but the prime years of one's adult life?), when he could have brought forth so much more wonderment and magic.

Though I could not have known the man or his works in life, I am glad that his The Wheel of Time series remains to light the path that he left behind.

*

Today is the 24th, so very shortly I'll be delving back into Flewelling's world of Aurenfaie, warrior queens, and beautiful gods of death. Expect an update (or another post) once I'm through.

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Finally, I thought it might be of interest to some that I've written this post on the ultra-tiny keyboard of my Asus EEE laptop. Why? Because my Vaio's going through a defragmentation at the moment, and doing nothing while the computer cleans itself--especially when there's another perfectly good computer waiting in the wings--is just plain silly.

Nightrunner & Knives (Now With Pictures!) ^__^

Read: Lynn Flewelling, Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, & Traitor's Moon
Reading: Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book One)
Redraft: Chapter 4 of 32

16081 / 139570

After the poignant Tamir trilogy, I was only too happy to look into Lynn Flewelling's previous work, set in the same world as the trilogy, but several centuries in the future. The first two books in the "Nightrunner" series resolves a plot thread alluded to in the trilogy but never completely resolved--it couldn't have been, it turns out, as it had already been resolved in a story written several years before, but taking place roughly four hundred years later. The plot along the series descends into dark waters similar to those in the trilogy, but overall there is more an an adventure feel to the series. It feels--and is, by design--more open ended. The overarching plot arc of the trilogy centered on the coming of age of the central character, and her fulfilling her prophecized destiny; once she did so, the story was clearly at an end (though like every good entertainer, Flewelling leaves her reader wanting more).

In the Nightrunner series, the adventures of the Aurenfaie spy Serengil and his protege (and eventual lover) Alec are far less rigid. I was surprised at first to find that the series had been appropriated by many Amazon.com user lists involving "gay fantasy"--my first impression from that affiliation cast dark romance-novel aspersions on the series. However, upon reading the books, I discovered that, as in the Tamir trilogy, the main characters travail a good amount before friendships blossom into something more. On top of that, the relationship between the two mains develops behind the scenes between the second and third novels, and while it features in the third novel, it is done in a low-key manner that suborinates the relationship to the story rather than the other way around. I'm no slash fan (not on principle; simply not my cup of tea), but the relationship is well-rendered and easy to empathize with. As luck would have it, the fourth book in the series is due for publication on the 24th of this month, so I won't have to wait too long for the next installment in this worthwhile series.

Until then, the first book in Robert Jordan's ponderous The Wheel of Time series should be more than enough to carry me through.

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From keyboards to desks to pens . . . my acquisitive nature has turned toward the kitchen in its latest escapades. I've been biding my time to select my own chef's knife, and after a prolonged consultation with various knife forums, I chose a Japanese brand that's known for giving people the most bang for the buck: the Tojiro DP series. It's a 8 1/4" chef's knife with a core of high-carbon steel encased on top and on the sides with a layer of chromium-laced stainless steel, to add both durability and the reactivity of the cutting edge, which is rated at an approximate hardness of 60 on the C. Rockwell scale, a good deal harder than most european-style knives. It's the same technique that's used on the well-known Shun series of knives (endorsed by none other than my cooking shishou, Alton Brown), sans the damascus patterning. Also, rather than a price tag between $150 and $200, I got the Tojiro DP from Korin.com for a measly $49.95.




I also found a 4 1/4" folding cook's knife (santoku-style blade) from A. G. Russell's:



Both are razor sharp, and I picked up a honing steel from Korin.com to keep them that way as long as possible. Might have to look into investing in a couple of whetting stones before the end of the year.

Wordmeter & Tamir

Read: Lynn Flewelling, The Bone Doll's Twin, Hidden Warrior, & The Oracle's Queen
Reading: Lynn Flewelling, Luck in the Shadows
Redraft: Chapter . . . 4 of 32 (There's a reason for this. See below.)

After two years, it's officially back:

13474 / 139570

The blue bar represents the number of words in my novel that have passed from first to second draft. The current word count represents the first three chapter's worth. The second number was the final word count of the first draft--without a doubt, the word count will shift as I bring the book from first to second draft.

(Incidentally, if you look at the picture of my desk in the last post, you'll see a large stack of paper on the shelf beside the laptop, bound by three very large rings. That's the manuscript as it was at the time.)

Between the last post and this one, I actually worked my way into the beginning of the new Chapter 5, but quickly fell into a quagmire. The set up I'd used in the first draft was holey to begin with, but I'd sloshed through it simply to get to the good parts, and also to get the bloody thing finished. With the redraft, it's time to pay the piper, and had to bash my head against the first bit of writer's block I've had since starting the redraft. It seems that my abilities have grown a bit since the last time the block and I met, because it only waylaid my progress for a single evening. The price of my solution, however, was rewriting much of my redraft, starting with middle of Chapter 2, and the whole of Chapters 3 and 4. I put the final period mark on the new Chapter 3 this weekend, and work had me occupied until this evening, so I'll set pen to paper (OK, fingers to keyboard) tonight. I'll post another wordmeter once Chapter 4 is squared away again.

As I've mentioned before, my goal is to have a second draft complete by this October, so I write a fresh 50,000 words' worth of the second book as a part of NaNoWriMo 2008 in November. Law school, work, and other non-noveling responsibilities be damned. I'm adding another goal to the pile, however: by the end of Summer 2009 (which will include the bar exam, happy happy joy joy), I'll have the first book in as good a shape as I can manage myself, and then it'll be time to call upon my early readers. (You know who you are; and if you want to be, just drop me a line.)

I've told only one other person so far, but these books are a part of a currently three- to four-book series, with two prequel novels also planned. Each will be stand-alone (though truth be told, for what I envision the 3rd book to be, that may not be easy), so hopefully, if I can get any one of the group published, the others will have a fighting chance as well.

*

After I vowed to reread a bunch of the best books that I read last year, I went back and read a book that I bought in 2006 but never got around to: The Bone Doll's Twin, by Lynn Flewelling. Three days later, I'd gone back to the bookstore, and finished the following two books in the "Tamir Triad," Hidden Warrior and The Oracle's Queen.

Bone Doll finds Flewelling at a transitional phase in her writing prowess, I think. The first few chapters are passable, interesting, with a well-fleshed out milieu, but lack the polished prose that I've come to expect of first-tier speculative fiction. By the middle of the book, she seems to find her stride, and, though I picked up the book with the intent of redeeming myself for my Mistborn binge and learning Stephen King's lesson about reading both in big gulps and little sips, I couldn't put the book down, and rocketed to buy the other two books the moment the store opened. Reading the other books back to back, it was an exhausting but transcendent experience, highly recommended to anyone, fantasy fan or otherwise.

The premise is an interesting one: "For three centuries a divine prophecy and a line of warrior queens protected Skala. But the people grew complacent and Erius, a usurper king, claimed his young half sister's throne. Now plague and drought stalk the land, war with Skala's ancient rival Penimar drains the country's lifeblood, and to be born female into the royal line has become a death sentence as the king fights to ensure the succession of his only heir, a son. For King Erius the greatest threat comes from his own line--and from Illior's faithful, who spread the Oracle's words to a doubting populace.

"As noblewomen young and old perish mysterious, the king's nephew--his sister's only child--grows toward manhood. But unbeknownst to the king or the boy, strange, haunted Tobin is the princess's daughter, given male form by a dark magic to protect her until she can claim her rightful destiny. Only Tobin's noble father, two wizards of Illior, and an outlawed forest witch know the truth. Only they can protect young Tobin from a king's wrath, a mother's madness, and the terrifying rage of her brother's demon spirit, determined to avenge his brutal murder . . ."

The trilogy sees Tobin-cum-Tamir grow from a frightened, isolated boy to the warrior queen she was destined to be, and is filled with memorable and wonderfully rounded characters. But the interaction between Tamir and Ki, the low-born knight's son chosen as her companion, is where the story truly shines. As boys they are the fastest friends, brothers in all but blood, but once her true self is revealed, the nature of their relationship necessarily changes along with it. A beautifully written tale, the only thing I can really cite against it is that the first book ends without real resolution, almost necessitating the purchase of the following book or two.

There is much I can learn from Flewelling, so she now joins the pantheon of other authors whose works serve as much-needed lighthouses for me as I navigate my own work to its intended port of call. Because I still haven't had enough, I'm working through her Nightrunner series, which is thankfully set in the same world as the Tamir trilogy, though several centuries later. I'm currently on the first book, and have two more to tide me over until the fourth is released at the end of this month. After that (or in the interim between third book and fourth), I've broken down and purchased the first book of Rober Jordan's The Wheel of Time epic, The Eye of the World, and have queued George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series as well.

Wii, Mistborn, Revisions, NaNoWriMo

Read: Mistborn & The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
Playing: No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii)
Redrafting: Chapter 3 of 32

In the latest demonstration of the fact that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, the luckiest member of my family, my mom won a Nintendo Wii at a school raffle last week. And, in a demonstration of the fact that it is good to have said luckier family members, that Wii is now a fixture in my room. (The living room TV has no AV ports to spare. Mine, as luck would have it, does.)

I inaugurated the Wii with the one exclusive game that I've had my eye on for quite some time: No More Heroes, by Ubisoft. It's an action game with some interesting gameplay mechanics, a semi-otaku main character, and major style points for presentation. It also is one of the few games for Nintendo's hardware to sport a MA-17 rating.

Top all that off with the fact that it was on sale at Gamestop for $29.99, and you end up with quite a nice deal.

Not that I've been able to play much of it this week.

*

Instead, I picked up Mistborn from where I dropped it (read: lost it) in my room about two years ago. It was the second book by the precocious Brandon Sanderson, a new power in the Fantasy industry whose debut novel Elantris impressed me mightily. While Elantris was a stand-alone novel, Mistborn was heralded as the first in a trilogy, which I looked forward to, especially since my first novel is essentially part of what may end up as a tetralogy or quintology. Sanderson has a strong grasp of character and plot, but what impressed me the most was his ability to create a tightly woven milieu with its own internal logic and cohesion. Since the beginning, my weakest attribute as a writer has been setting, in which milieu plays an integral part, especially in speculative fiction. Studying at the feet of masters has been one of the greatest sources of improvement for me, so reading Sanderson's latest works have been a wonderful crash course on the subject.

Of course, I never read a novel for didactic quality alone.

His novels are also just plain fun. The plots are fresh and largely unpredictable (a positive aspect for me, since I can generally predict the plot of any given hour-long TV drama within the first 20 minutes), but nevertheless inevitable in a way that satisfies the reader. He can turn a phrase when he wants to, but he doesn't have quite so lyrical a grasp of language as some of the others I turn to for a good read.

In any event, I finished Mistborn over the weekend, and then, realizing from the copyright that it had been published in 2006, wondered if the second book in the series had already been released.

It had. In 2007.

So I rushed down to Borders (Barnes and Noble didn't have any copies; the paperback is due out in June 3) and grabbed a copy (when it comes to a really good book, who can wait for Amazon.com's free shipping?), and read it in just about a day. Which, in retrospect, was a bad thing, since the third and final book in the trilogy isn't due for release until October 14th.

Rationing was never my strong suit.

*

But, on the bright side, a strong influx of good narrative prose often gets the creative juices flowing on my part, so I've broken through the "revising" part of my redraft and have started working on the substantive, well, redrafting--that is, throwing out crap chapters and rewriting them from scratch. In the process of writing the first draft, I knew that the initial chapters would need some serious attention in the redrafting stage, but I ignored the whinny voice in my head because my goal was to have a completed (read: crap) draft come hell or high water. Now that I've got that, it's time to get a completed (read: passable) redraft for possible first reader feedback. (Possible, because if I still feel that the redraft isn't up to snuff, then it'll face a redraft of its own.)

I've also set the tentative goal of having the redraft of the novel completed by the end of summer, or at least before November, which is the traditional NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Lunatic wordsmith that I am, I've decided to draft at least the first 50,000 words of the second novel in the series as my part of the NaNoWriMo frenzy. (There are numerous sound industry arguments against writing the sequel to a novel that has yet to--and, therefore, likely will not--be published. To those arguments, I say: I have to do what I have to do, and if that means writing out a multi-book story arc to its conclusion before moving on to another, perhaps more marketable stand-alone, then so be it. Besides, one of my goals as a writer is to never publish a novel that requires the reader to be familiar with my previous work. I seek--and only time will tell if I can be consistent on this count--to have every book in a series work as a stand-alone novel in its own right, even if some of these "stand alones" may end up with something of a cliffhanger ending.)

And yes, my NaNoWriMo participation will take place during my 3L year at law school. If nothing else, law school drills time management and multitasking into your brain like few other graduate schools, so I don't think I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Well, that's enough blogging for one week. Back to the redraft.