Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Edits, Pants, and Vampire Rants

So at some point I'll figure out how to make my header image the correct size. In the meantime, I apologize for making all of you tech-savy people out there cringe. :-)

But that's not the reason for this blog. The reason is... **duh duh DUHHHH** I finished editing Part One of The Whale and the Tree last night! Hip hip hooray!! I've gone back and read bits of it, and I'm quite happy with the changes I've made so far. It definitely feels like a stronger novel so far, with 50% less saltwater and 74% less melodrama (did you know that 83.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot?). Hacked through the first chapter of Part Two this morning, so there's only thirteen chapters left. *groan* I'm expecting everything to go pretty smoothly until I hit Chapter Five, when my adding/rearranging will kick in full force. Current word count is: 111,052, which is about 7k longer than the original draft. I'm thinking there will be somewhere around 9-10k added in Part Two, so hopefully this thing won't end up any longer than circa 120k. Hmm. We'll see I guess.

In other news...

I saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 this weekend, and I must admit it made me cry. *sniffles* I never read the fourth book and now I kinda want to, just to see how it relates to the movie; there were bits from books two and three in there, and I'm curious if the rest was from book four or if it was invented for the movie.

What is the big deal with the Twilight books, I mean seriously? Anything vampire makes me roll my eyes anyway, but man, has the public in general lost their minds? I read the first couple of pages and was immediately put off by the MC, a girl from Phoenix, who was moaning and groaning that she had to move to Washington state because she loved Arizona and especially the "blistering heat." Um I'm sorry, but no. I understand that there are people who don't mind the summers as much as I do, but no one actually adores blistering heat. If they tell you that, they're lying. Phoenix hate aside, everything I hear about these books makes me want to barf. Edward whatever-his-name-is sounds like a rather abusive boyfriend, and the whole scenario seems overly melodramatic. Yesterday Jenny told me the content of the latest addition to the saga, Breaking Dawn (not that she's read it; she was reading about it online) and wow. I really don't understand what people see in these books.

I often peruse the shelves of the Young Adult Fantasy sections at my local bookstore. I adore YA fantasy, which is why I write it. But let's face it. Sometimes it sucks. I don't know if this bodes well for my chances of getting published or not. In comparison to current YA fantasy, The Whale and the Tree has:
  • No vampires
  • No werewolves
  • No fairies
  • No elves
  • No wizards
  • No telepathic dragons
  • No quests for lost objects
  • No secret identities
  • No epic bloody battles.
And yes. It is possible to write a fantasy novel without including any of the above.

Anyways, enough ranting. Gotta brush my teeth and head off to piano lessons.

Offended by crappy fiction,

Gamwyn

1 comment:

Danielle Pajak said...

Actually, it isn't Edward who is the abusive one in the relationship, but Bella. He does all these wonderful things for her, saves her life, makes her feel special, etc, only she is never satisfied. She is a selfish, whining, complaining little wench who, as I explained before, can't decide between the werewolf and the vampire. What the heck? Especially since she couldn't even breath let alone live without Edward in the first book. She is just a big turn off all around. I guess it shows with the first paragraph of her complaining about Washington. It goes downhill from there. Edward was pretty cool, though a pretty one dimensional character, but then again I have a thing for vampires. Heehee! Well, sort of. ;)

Totally agree with your assessment that good fantasy doesn't have to have the typical, typical in it. Probably the only one who really got the whole dragon/wizard/elves/bloody battles/quest thing down perfectly was J.R.R. Tolkien. No one does better!