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That dirty, rotten, no good, low down, mother trucking son of a beech tree!

I bought Michael A. Stackpole’s novel A Secret Atlas because, well, I’d found his podcast on writing to be the bee’s knees (So what if I’ve been reading a lot of Miss Snark? Go ahead, shoot me with a clue-gun!). In other words, the only writer’s info that I’ve found to be more helpful were Miss Snark herself, and Holly Lisle’s over 100,000 words of free writing articles (links are on the left hand side- don’t ignore the FAQs). So yeah, in the top three. And believe me, there’s a lot to compare it to.

So anyway, I picked it up a few months ago and stuck it in my TBR pile. Last Friday, I picked it up and started reading.

Ok. Nothing special. A little too much narrative, too many POV changes (though always in separate chapters, no hopping), and not enough character building for my taste. That’s not to say that it wasn’t well written, just that it wasn’t to my taste.

So, I push on. After all, I highly respected and appreciated his advice, and so I was going to finish the book and then simply not move on to the sequel.

About half way through, I start getting attached to the characters. Yeah, it’s a lot farther on than it should take, but still. And the plot hasn’t even been fully declared yet, but it’s starting to form. “Good”, I think, “at least I should enjoy the rest of it”.

Last 1/4 of the book things are starting to pick up. Very interesting things are happening, and I’m thinking “Oh no. Now I’ll want to read the sequel. This has obviously started so slow because it should have been a 1500 page book, not three 500+ page books. No, I will be strong. After all, it’s not like this particular character is enough to carry off another whole book for me.”

And then, he does the unthinkable. He kills off my favorite character. The character that I refused to put the book down no matter how bad I had to pee (I mean, sleep/work) if that particular character’s chapter was up next.

And he does it brilliantly.

Son of a beach.

So, yeah. The circumstances of the killing and the hints of how that death will change the world mean that I have to pick up Cartomancy. Gee, thanks Mike! I gotta go shell out more money now.

Now- for those who are unfamiliar with Michael A Stackpole and/or his work, here are a few tidbits.

1) His website is Stormwolf.com – not his name.com

2) I have not signed up for his newsletters yet since I was unaware of their existence.

3) You may have issues with his website. My computer at work freezes up every time I try to load it, yet I have no problems at home. No idea why this is since I use the same browsers here and there.

4) I’ve never read one of his Merlin Bloodstone books, but I did read his MB short story in an anthology that I’ll likely be giving away at some point. It was one of only two stories in the ENTIRE ANTHOLOGY that I actually liked. He has it available for download for $2 in his store. I’ll probably pick up one of the MB books when my TBR pile is shorter.

5) Michael A Stackpole, Holly Lisle, and Miss Snark all have one thing in common (besides being helpful)- they all do that “Short answer: blah blah, Long answer: blah blah blah blah” thing. I don’t know why I think that’s interesting.

Now, I have to go off and listen to several of his podcast episodes again to get that address he wanted postcards sent to. I bought the postcard before I bought the book, and I didn’t address the postcard! Idiot me.

*now taking donations for brain transplants- and thanks Wolf, but I’d rather have a less frightening one*

I finally worked my way down my TBR pile to approximately 9 books left, plus classics.

So what do I do? I hit a used book store, of course!

Picked up Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (hoping her books don’t need to be read in order since I’ve never read any of the other Shopaholic books- but Miss Snark likes them…), Nora Roberts’ Irish Dreams, Piers Anthony’s Firefly- a writer friend says he’s funny in a sarcastic sort of way, 3 of the Wheel of Time series (I always read brother’s copies, and can’t afford to buy the whole series new), A Christmas Carol (only ever read it in school with the school’s copies), Jonathan Wild (looked good), Little Women (would you believe that I’ve never read it before?).

Not too bad for $29. Not great either, though, as I’m used to used books running half this price, but whatever.

If your protag puts on a tight, little dress, your readers will assume that your character is (A) a girl, (B) thin, even if not a knock-out, (C) going somewhere appropriate to wearing a tight, little dress. We don’t need to see her think about how hard it is to be a woman with a flat stomach and going to a club/party/restaurant. Of course, if your character is not one of the above things, then that information needs to be transmitted at some point such as “Paul slipped on a tight little dress and watched his beer gut stretch the fabric to its limits. ‘Ah’ He thought, ‘What a lovely evening to attend a funeral’”. But, yanno… on average.

So tell me, do your characters think about the exact coffee shade of their skin? Ruminate about the meaning of their third toe in their religion? Imagine how hard it would be for a heterosexual to understand their homosexual lifestyle? Anyone?

Actually, the third toe would be funny. Please send me a copy of your book if you do this.