Wednesday, January 27, 2010

From the sublime to the ridiculous

I've been reading Peter David's Tigerheart, which I was really excited to finally read. I've heard excellent things about it. I'm about a third of the way in and, well, I'm not sure about it. One second I think, "this guy is really doing interesting things with narrative and reality," the next second I think, "this isn't groundbreaking, it's arch and studied." My snobby lit-major me is at war with my practical, straightforward me. I can't decide if I'm being sucked into an elaborate practical joke or if I'm just immature in my literary choices.

Anyway, wrestling with this book, and myself, has kind of depressed me, not helped by yet another rejection received today. I've been working on Little Sparrow the last few days although I still don't really know where it's going. Mostly I just wanted a project to work on, and Little Sparrow was in my head already since The Price of Justice is set in the same world and I just finished revising it.

But I think tomorrow I'm going to start the pursuit of the Ignoble Experiment. I will read the Harlequin Intrigue book I bought at Goodwill last month, carefully examining it for evidence of tropes and commonplaces that I need to know, and then I will attempt to write a book for that series. If I can. Because frankly, there's a slightly better chance I could sell one of those than the books I've already written.

10 comments:

Danielle Birch said...

I have a friend who is writing a book for Intrigue too. Good luck with it and I hope starting a new story cheers you up.

Fox Lee said...

I checked out a "romantic" sex scene recently. Oh, how I laughed : )

Cate Gardner said...

Pfft! Harlequin. You're going to get multiple requests for Bell-Men.

紅豆 said...
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K.C. Shaw said...

Danielle--I actually got a pretty good idea for a plot last night, so I'm a little excited about writing it now.

Natalie--When I worked in a used book store, we used to read out the naught bits of romances out loud to each other on slow days. Mucho hilarioso.

Cate--Oh, I wish!

Jamie Eyberg said...

Good luck, but Cate is right. Bell-men is going to take over the world.

Anne Spollen said...

It would be nice if the romance took off and enabled you to write full time.

I went to a book fair in the fall, and the romance table was the biggest and sold the most books out of all the genres there.

Just sayin'

K.C. Shaw said...

Jamie--I'd like to think so. I'll be starting the (hopefully final) round of Bell-Men edits soon, so we'll see how that goes.

Anne--That would be awesome! I make very little at my day job so I figure four or five romances a year at mid 4-figure advances would easily cover my bills. Of course, there's this pesky thing called health insurance, but maybe Congress will stop acting like self-serving morons soon and get that sorted out.

Paula RC said...

Maybe a change is as good as a rest. Writing something different from what you are working may help you to see what is wrong with it before you send it out again. But don't given you on your book. I have put my first novel away for good now, but in the future, I may just get it out again, who knows.

K.C. Shaw said...

I think you're definitely right. It might be fun to write something totally different from what I usually write, and it might give me ideas on how to improve my overall skills too.