WIP Wednesday

Small aside: after reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone, the fact that the magical world in my novels has two moons which are referred to as "the two sisters" doesn't seem as cool and original as I first thought it was. Possible back-to-the-drawing board on that one.

Okay. Okay! So, tonight I will cross the 100,000 word threshold in Dyllan and Abigail. I'm getting near the end now, and everything is starting start to come together—it's exciting! I went into this novel with a very clear image of the last few scenes—the climax and denouement—but I was unsure how I was going to get there. I'm still not entirely sure, but I'm a lot closer to figuring it out.

I can already tell this novel will need a lot of revision, but I feel like my second draft will be a lot easier than my second draft of Water Magic was. I'm looking forward to tightening the plot, fleshing out the characters, and fixing the pacing.

Total word count: 99,837

Random quote:

With nothing else left to do, Hammish turned to the door and knocked. For a long time nothing happened. He was just about to turn and rejoin Margot and Radgaw at the bus stop when the door lurched open with a creak.

A pair of eyes met his—young eyes with dark, sickly shadows lying beneath them. Dark blond hair, even-toned skin that must have been olive-hued when it was healthy. But it was the eyes that drew Hammish’s gaze. Beneath a certain hollowness, they were unmistakably Folk eyes. Just now they flicked over him with impatience. “Yeah?”

The traditional weapon of the Folk is the yari, a sharpened stick with a fire-hardened tip. Worn in a sling across the back, it can be used as a spear or a javelin, and can also be used to throw and direct spells. Image by Ragnar Singsaas, 2008. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Javelin_throw.jpg

Thoughts on mythology and DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE

Photo source: fantasticfiction.co.uk

This weekend I finished reading Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I loved the book for a lot of reasons—characters, setting, just plain good writing—but one of the things that really struck me was the way that the author used and re-imagined mythology. I think this can be a tricky thing to do, and we see it fairly often in YA and middle grade—mythology tweaked to fit the story. Werewolves who change according to the temperature rather than the fullness of the moon (Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver), vampires who come out during the day (Twilight by Stephanie Meyer; Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy), and I'm sure there are loads of other examples. The thing is, this normally irritates me, because I find it jarring and that makes it hard for me to get into the story.

But with Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I didn't get that at all. I found the world of the chimaeras and the seraphim very believable within the context of the story. More so than that, I loved the mythology within the mythology—the fact that both chimaera and seraphim have very different—and beautiful—legends that explain their own origins and the origins of their enemies. These stories in themselves tell us a lot about the fictional cultures from which they arose.

So I'm trying to figure out what it is about this book that made me love it when most books with this kind of set up just annoy me. I think it all comes down to the quality of the writing. Laini Taylor can write, there's no doubt about that. But more than just the skin and bones of good sentence structure, pacing, or even good characters (though those all help). I think it's the utter originality of the story that hooked me and kept me reading. It was so much more than "paranormal dude becomes obsessed with an ordinary high school girl". Karou, the protagonist, is interesting in herself—confident, artistic, physically strong, yet simultaneously flawed and confused. She, the angel Akiva, the chimaera Brimstone—in fact all of the main characters—are complex and believable. And lines between good and evil aren't clear; there's a lot of gray. Plus, without spoilers, the way the story falls together at the end of the novel is beautiful; it's seamless.

I guess the re-imagining of mythology in this novel didn't feel like laziness or crowbarring—it was artfully done and it made sense. Which, now that I think about it, is true for all good writing.

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So, what are your favorite/least favorite books that re-work old legends? Or do you think that it's best if modern authors stay away from mythology entirely? Let me know in the comments!

WIP Wednesday

As is becoming usual these days, I didn't actually get much done in my WIP over the past week, word count wise. What I did manage to add felt pretty solid though, and I'm still pretty happy with the story and where it's going, considering it's the first draft. And though I haven't been writing much quantity-wise, I have managed to write every day, even if it was just a paragraph or two. I'm still struggling a bit with feeling tired and drained after a full day at my library job, when I come home and don't want to look at a screen anymore for any length of time. I suppose I'll have to keep working to find a way around that lack of energy.

Total word count: 91,185

Abernwyth has two moons. Unlike in this photograph, one is significantly larger than the other, and appears to lead it across the night sky. They are commonly called "the big sister and the little sister." The superstitious sometimes foretell the future based on changes in the colors of the moons. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dark_side_of_the_moon.jpg

 Random quote:

Abby’s eyes flicked toward the window, where a white-feathered face watched her with giant yellow eyes. She almost laughed with surprise, but her head hurt too much. “A cloudwing!”

Collin nodded. “Faster than almost any other dragon.”

The cloudwing blinked first its left eye, and then its right.

“He does that so he never takes an eye off you,” Collin said. “He’s taken quite a shine to you, Abby.”

 Hope everyone else is having happy writing and reading this week!

March + April reads

I'm way behind in my reading posts. *sigh*

Here's what I've read over the last two months.

MARCH

The Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones—12-year-old Aidan shows up just as Andrew, a history-professor-turned-writer, inherits his uncle's magical field of care. I liked this book, but I didn't love it like I loved Howl's Moving Castle or Charmed Life. At this point in my Diana Wynne Jones phase, I think I was starting to get a little burned out.

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones—Cat Chant, the protagonist from Charmed Life, returns for a new adventure in which he befriends a girl witch. When the two discover a mysterious and highly magical egg, the entire town is thrown into an uproar. Thoughts: This book was okay. I liked parts of it, but thought it dragged in others. As with The Magicians of Caprona, at times I felt like there were too many characters and the story was more complex than it needed to be.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare—Hermia is in love with Lysander. Helena is in love with Demetrius. Demetrius is in love with Hermia. When the four young lovers run away to the forest, a group of mischievous fairies complicate matters even further. Shakespeare! I can't not like Shakespeare (except in the case of Titus Andronicus—I mean, ew). Magical, lighthearted and fun—what's not to like?

The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones—A ghost wakes, with only a vague feeling that there's been an accident. Slowly, she regains some of her memories, but her past remains hazy. She knows she was one of four sisters, but which one? This is a strange book, and quite a bit darker than the other Diana Wynne Jones novels I have read. I liked how strange the characters were, but I thought the plot moved too slowly, especially during the first half.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak—A novel set in Nazi Germany, and narrated by death (who, actually, is pretty amiable and sympathetic). The story follows the Book Thief, Liesel Meminger, as she arrives at the home of her new foster parents in a suburb of Munich, and for the next several years as she makes friends, learns to read, steals books, and grows to love her new family. Thoughts: I love this book. I love the characters, the narrator's voice, the relationship between Liesel and her best friend Rudy, and between Liesel and her foster father Hans, who teaches her to read. I just can't adequately explain my love for this novel. If you haven't read it, you need to. Seriously.

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson—Goes over everything we know about William Shakespeare. Which actually isn't a whole lot. Covers what we know about his life and the society in which he lived, and examines the conspiracy theories about his existence. Thoughts: A short, easy-to-read, interesting book.

APRIL

Fruits Basket: Ultimate Edition, volumes 5 and 6—The ever-optimistic Tohru Honda continues to live with the beautiful but cursed Sohma family. Wacky adventures, comedy, innocent romance, drama, and fighting abound. Thoughts: This series is like crack to me! So sad that Tokyopop is no longer active in North America, and the remaining Ultimate Editions were never printed.

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April is kinda deceptive, as I was also working on Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, and The Merchant of Venice, which I'm reading sporadically (mostly because my favorite Shakespeare volume isn't very portable and I read a lot on the go).

So those are my adventures in reading lately. What books have you guys been into recently? Let me know in the comments!

WIP Wednesday

I tried a new strategy today: writing to trance music. It really seemed to work! My concentration was very good, and the story was flowing well all day. Of course some of that might have been due to the run that I went on this morning. Exercise always has a calming effect on me, and I can concentrate noticeably better after I've gone for a run or had a gym workout.

Mostly due to traveling and the general fatigue that lingered even after the traveling was over, I'm not as far along in the novel as I would have initially hoped (my goal in January was to finish this draft by the beginning of April *laugh*), but I'm still feeling pretty good about the story.

Total word count: 89,843

Random quote:

"Go on, we’re almost there. What are you doing? Go!”

But Abby was there next to them, grabbing one of Collin’s arms. His face was turning magenta as he struggled to breathe.

“Dad—” There was a blinding crack, and Abby felt the witch standing over them before she saw her. Lady Charmain, in a towering rage, seemed to grow out of the hillside like a deformed, spindly tree.

 Yup. She's a pretty scary witch and she's not happy.

Hope everyone else's writing is going well!