Virtue, as an expression of defeat
Jun. 6th, 2011 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceReally, I'd rather be sitting out there in the sun, reading Cold Magic and sipping gin, turning golden. And yet here I am like an expression of virtue, with my shirt on, at the keyboard. Sipping gin, admittedly - but this is the last of the tonic, alas. I thought I had more. I was apparently mistaken.
Mostly, though, I'm working. Trying to get chapter two moving. It's hard. Chapter One is the mise-en-scene, it sets the pieces in place and gets the reader up to speed; in chapter two, the plot starts moving. Things need to happen, and really? I haven't a clue.
Nothing new in that, of course - times without number I have said that a book is a journey, that the writer takes it step by step with the reader, that it's an artistic necessity not to know what lies around the corner until you actually go and look - but even so. Momentum counts for much, and this doesn't have any yet. I have to haul.
Also, sunshine. Book. Someone else's book. Always so much more attractive. I have also said times without number that reading is a collaborative act, that the reader is also working hand in hand with the writer - but of course it doesn't feel like that, if the thing's done right. Vampire bats have anaesthetic in their saliva, I believe; their victims practically cooperate. This book - well, yes. See me line up with all the other donors. (Also, sabre-tooth cats. Sabre-tooth werecats. Prrrr.)
Mostly, though, I'm working. Trying to get chapter two moving. It's hard. Chapter One is the mise-en-scene, it sets the pieces in place and gets the reader up to speed; in chapter two, the plot starts moving. Things need to happen, and really? I haven't a clue.
Nothing new in that, of course - times without number I have said that a book is a journey, that the writer takes it step by step with the reader, that it's an artistic necessity not to know what lies around the corner until you actually go and look - but even so. Momentum counts for much, and this doesn't have any yet. I have to haul.
Also, sunshine. Book. Someone else's book. Always so much more attractive. I have also said times without number that reading is a collaborative act, that the reader is also working hand in hand with the writer - but of course it doesn't feel like that, if the thing's done right. Vampire bats have anaesthetic in their saliva, I believe; their victims practically cooperate. This book - well, yes. See me line up with all the other donors. (Also, sabre-tooth cats. Sabre-tooth werecats. Prrrr.)