I got nothing for you today! That's right: nothing. I'm really busy at work and busy at home and oh so tired most of the time.
We're moving forward into the production phase of the Variations on a Theme anthology, and we still plan to have it available on March 15th. That's a very aggressive schedule and if it doesn't show up for sale until, say, March 16th or 17th, I don't want to hear any complaints. Don't make me turn this car around. Don't.
Also, though I have nothing for you today, I might have something exciting and self-aggrandizing to tell you next week. We'll see. We shall see.
Meanwhile, I have written a whole paragraph of my work-in-progress's Chapter 9. I read it back and realized it was in the style of Charles Dickens. Right now I'm reading Dickens' final novel, Our Mutual Friend. Should I worry that the style of my Chapter 9 is that of Dickens? No, I don't think I should. It's just a rough draft and doubtless there are passages in the styles of Nabokov, Chekhov, O'Connor and who knows who else right now. I'm a writer of inclusion, you know. And it all gets shaken and ironed out in the revisions. Still, I was very amused. Though I doubt Dickens ever wrote, "His mind was smeared with painkillers."
Happy Friday and happy weekend, kids!
Happy Friday, Scott! I am reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. It's not spilling into my writing yet, but in my head I am making all of these comparisons: Why don't I have perfumed crows in my book? Why aren't I using this flowery language? Why don't I juxtapose such beautiful imagery with such horrific yuck? (Okay, I do try to often do the last thing.)
ReplyDeleteOh, this post is far from lame, hah. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I ever start sounding like what I'm reading...I should pay more attention. The problem is that I rarely read while I'm drafting a book, which means I go months without reading anything. These are not good things...
I do start to imitate the style of the novels I'm reading, and I'm in a burst of Sherlock Holmes at the moment, so it seems a tad (see, I said 'tad') strange when my Aussie kid characters are shouting 'egads!'
ReplyDeleteRead? Who has time to read? There's my entry in "Variations", my WIP, and, oh yes, that contest over at Poisoned Pen. And the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and better not forget the wife. Read, you say? I laugh in your face. Hah!
ReplyDeleteYou have a lovely weekend, Mr. Bailey. It amuses me that you call me kid.