Spring break began about eight hours ago for me. I got out of Genetics lab and came home and, because I am working from midnight to 8 am tomorrow, went to sleep. When I got up four hours after going to sleep I showered, meandered the internet and then, quite spur of the moment, decided to go to Borders down the way.
The idea had been peculating for a while because Margot, who works the front desk, had been talking about going because this one is going out of business. All books were 25% off, which is an all right amount to be off, so I decided as I purused the shelves to just pick up anything that caught my interest.
My first stop in any bookshop is to go to the "reference" section. I like looking at books about writing -- which coincidentally are always next to books about science. There is something nice about the juxtaposition. I riffled through a few, and found several books that were inspirationals for writers -- exercises, and so on for people who might be a little stuck. I picked up two of them, and The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell which seemed a little more about the practicalities of writing.
Having looked in that section I went straight for fantasy, but found, in the end, nothing of interest. Its not that I don't like fantasy, but I actually prefer young adult fantasy, and that was where I found myself eventually. I picked up books that looked interesting and eventually had quite a pile which I sorted through and picked two of.
In the end these are the books I bought:
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
The Naming by Alison Croggon
The Art of War for Writers James Scott Bell
The 3 am Epiphany by Brian Kiteley
Now, spring break is a week long and I'm working at the desk for 32 hours of it, so I've decided I should attempt to read both fiction books. The other thing I've decided to do is go through The 3 am Epiphany and write something for each exercise -- at least one a day.
Now because these are exercises and not terribly likely to get published, I'm thinking about posting them up here. Just as an experiment.
We'll see.
totally read 'city of bones' and i was totally underwhelmed. i still READ it all, but i found clary fray and jace fairly "meh" characters. i just thought the characterisation was shallow and kind of cliched. Also alison croggon's main occupation is making painfully obvious LOTR rip-offs - i haven't read THAT book, though, so it might be better than you think.
ReplyDeletei'm totally not insulting your choices, ro, because i would have made EXACTLY the same choices - its just that i've already been there. tell me what you think, though. There might be hidden depths, right?