Just the usual nonsense...

[harpergrey.livejournal.com]

Blog flog: Friday, June 03, 2005
http://www.eridine.com/blog/2005_06_01_archive.html

As ever, LKH's stuff in italics, mine not so much.

One thing that used to concern me was when I was between two and three hundred pages in and still had not gotten to the full meat of the mystery or main plot.... Lots of stuff is happening, important stuff, but the fact that there's no villain in sight, well, I'm cool with that. I knew the first half of this book was mainly to solidify control of the arduer and the whole powers thing, and that's what we're doing.

Three hundred pages in and there's no sign of a bad guy, much less a plot? That's never a good sign. Especially in a series which is supposed to be mystery-driven (but we all know how much that is not happening). Sounds like the next Anita "novel" is going to be a work to rival Incubus Dreams, all right.

Though, unfortunately Anita and Richard have already had one fight. I was really hoping for at least one book where we didn't fight.

I'm just going to attempt to ignore the "we". Why do we have to have a book where they don't fight? If I was Richard, and the girl I (for some sick, masochistic reason) liked was sleeping with -- what is it now? -- eight other guys? Well, needless to say, I'd be somewhat annoyed. Actually, I'd have dumped her hiney ages ago, but of course, this is LKH's world, and no one's ever allowed to leave. I pity those poor characters.

Since some people seem a little puzzled by the concept of the whole novel-lite, and what it means, I'm going to be doing an essay about it in the next newsletter.

Hm. That says so many things about her remaining fanbase, I think. ;)

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

YOU BEAT ME TO IT!

I saw that entry this morning, but I was too fried to hit it as soon as it came up. Then I was awake until nearly 4am. *facepalm*

1. Anita gained control of the ardeur in Incubus Dream. It happened when blood loss finally kicked in after she'd been bled by Damian, bled by Primo, bled by Requiem, bled for the fucking zombie and still managed to sex everyone eighty million ways to Sunday. She sat all quiet and shocky in the back of the car and suddenly went, "OMFG! I can control it! Yayz!" and then, "Oh shits. It's killing Damian. I'd better sex some more to keep him alive."

All because she levelled up with the first triumvirate. Please roll for new idea.

2. Quit with the freaking ardeur already. It's been there for three books and hasn't had any resolution. The problem with the original triumvirate and the fourth freaking mark has been lingering since...oh, BOOK SIX and since it concerns JC, Richard and Anita and the whole prospect of, y'know, surviving eternity - you'd think it'd be a little bit more important than all this other stuff.

In short: solve the Defcon 1 problem before you get to the Code Mauve or Marigold or whatever colour level threat is going on. It's like trying to use a seive to bail out a sinking boat when all you have to do is plug the hole.

Plugging holes would probably solve a great many other problems too.

3. If you have to spend 300+ pages establishing this newfound control thingy, you're doing something wrong. Really. Most of it can probably be cut down to a chapter or two. An editor (who is your best friend in all the freaking world!) will be able to help you with this. They will also point out ways to improve structure, spelling and grammar.

I'm pretty much prepared to offer my services for free, even knowing the eye-gouging, ear-bleeding insanity may well ensue should I gaze upon the manuscript.

Who wants to bet good money that these 300 or so pages are Anita sexing up people, realising that she loves them in her own special way, and then angsting about what this means to the other boys and how she's going to try and protect them all, pay speshul attention to them, work and kick Evil's arse?

I think I know why there's no bad guy thus far, they're all on holiday. They can't be arsed beaming into her backyard, and since she's so freaking busy getting bizzay, they figure she'll sex everyone to death. So they went to the pub for a round of drinks.

They probably trade stories with Sauron and the real Darth Vader.

4. ...what's up with the 'we' business?

Laurell K. Hamilton is starting to really scare me.

5. Yes, I'm puzzled over what this "novel-ite" thing is and what it means.

I'm guessing that it's either:
A) A short novel, aka a novella. Or short novel. Or *gasp* an actual novel but since it's taking 300 pages to introduce a concept that probably only needs one tenth, if that, to settle, that's probably asking wayyy too much brain power to understand.

B) A new word that she's made up to make herself even more unique and appear to be academic. We covered this in our creative writing classes, and discussed how it's Americans that are quite good at making up new words and terms when there are more concise terms already in use, and are accepted by all the great literary minds.

Course, then there's the argument that if you can't see the brilliance of the term, then you're just evil, spiteful and omg jealous of her enormous talent.

or C) some sort of small, parasitic arthropod that causes skin rash. It dwells dormant in the pages of a book, and latches onto your hair follicles when you touch the paper. Then it feeds on blood and possibly sebacious excretions, lays its egs and dies. Thus, the life cycle of a novel-ite.

*headdesk*

Honey, you shouldn't have to write an essay to explain something like this.

But you go for it, knock yourself out. Try to justify yourself and feed us ammo. We need the laugh.

[/rant]

*breathes*