Danse macabre

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Howdy folks. I was reccommended here to vent my bile (although it'll probably end up being a more melencholic humor)
I just read Danse Macabre. Hell, I'd even mentally girded myself for massive monster porn. I can enjoy a bit of monster porn, although mostly for humor value. Even so, however, after finishing it I felt... unsatisfied.

Not exactly disappointed. I can tell from reading LKH's blog and the book that she's got just as many neat ideas as ever. I really liked the few plot scenes that existed :P ( spoilerish )

No, I'm sure LKH *could* write a book as appealing as the old Anita ones. And I don't think it would even be necessary to cut out all the sex! Some of the scenes were kind of hot, at points. I'm not really interested in the sex, but in and of itself I don't have a problem with it.
No, what I see as the problem is that LKH seems to have forgotten how to pace herself.
The way she's currently writing I could probably wait three or four books, then get all of them, cut out all the metaphysical yammering, emotional coddling, and half the sex, and *then* I'd get a real nice book.
I mean, taking away people's pain is touching and sweet and all, but when she does it every book with at least five men it just kind of loses its meaning.
Reading LKH's blog, it seems she puts *all* emphasis on number of pages these days. I think that's the problem. She doesn't seem to mark progress by how much of her plot outline she's gotten through, but pages. If the page count gets too high, then cut the plot in half, save it for another book. I think this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.
If I thought LKH's style had just changed into a different direction than I liked, well, I'd be a little sad but I'd say more power to her. I know her books are selling better than ever, but I think that's because she's gotten into the romance market and that is a *huge* industry, and most of it is pure crap. XP However, I think LKH's books would be selling just as strong there, if not more so, plus appealing to all of us if she just paced her stories better! I really don't mind the sex, I just mind the overwhelming amount of repetitiveness and pointless dialogue. It's like watching a Dragon Ball Z episode; you think "this episode they'll finally finish the big fight!" adn it turns out to be yet another half an hour of people grunting at each other and maybe moving their foot to one side a bit.
And it's just sad because I can tell she's very talented. One hopes to see one's favorite creators improve as time goes on, but it seems to me LKH is backsliding. And I get the feeling sooner or later her bubble's going to burst, like Anne Rice (okay, I've never read her work, or really know much about her, but I got the impression she was a big thing that's now kind of defunct)

Normally I wouldn't be so bold as to say a successful creator is doing something blatently wrong but... I do write my own stories. Comics. It's easy to fall into the habit of drawing stories out, filling them with easy things to make (lots of meaningful pauses, lots of heads with no background emoting in some way, fewer panels per page, etc). And you feel like you're accomplishing a lot because hey, lots of pages! But really, I enjoy comics that pack as much into their pages as possible far, far more than ones that seem to take forever to go anywhere. If the plot slows down to molassas I stop reading. In fact, that's one reason I so seldom read mangas; most of them seem to be 80% filler and fluff XP

Anyway, I guess I wish I could ask LKH herself about this, or that someone would... I really don't know if she's the type who'd just dismiss it or not. I can kind of understand why she'd be tired of people telling her "too much sex" or "too much violence". And especially tired of people being mean about it. But I think this is something that would truely improve her books for everyone, and she does seem to desire to be professional about things, and one very important element of being professional is being able to look at your work and find ways to improve it.

Anyway, that is my rant. Gwuh, I think I'm throwing in the towl on Anita for a while. Already sold off all my Gentry books and havent' picked up the most recent one. Anita at least I might pick up the latest couple of books in the library after a few years, as I said, with lots of skimming they might add up to a decent book.

Challenge: Make a Mock Blog

[pith]

This isn't like our normal blog-flogging goodness. This time, you get to be batshit crazy just like LKH! (C'mon. You know you want to.) Make a fake, or "mock", blog entry in the style of LKH's infamous blog entries.

Rules:
1. Observe the general FAQ and the rules below.

2. If you aren't sure about something, ask pith by emailing the gmail address given in the community's bio. DO NOT ASSUME. And for the love of all gods, don't think saying "I wasn't sure if I could do this, so just delete it if I'm wrong!" will save you. I'm telling you right now to ASK.

3. Don't talk about Trinity. She's an innocent in all this. She can be mentioned in passing (e.g., "Trinity was at her father's this weekend") but nothing in depth.

4. Don't quote or "borrow" from LKH. Your mock blog must be written by you.

5. Don't include a date. This isn't a big deal, but it'll just confuse people like me who have issues remembering what day it is at the best of times.

6. Follow the format below:
Subject line: "Mock Blog: [your mock blog's title]"

Info block:
Title: [your mock blog title]
Spoilers: [if necessary]
Notes: [anything you think we should know]
* = If you make intentional grammar/spelling/etc. errors, mention this under Notes

7. You must place your Mock Blog behind an LJ-cut, no matter how long it is. If you don't know how to do an LJ-cut, it's in the LJ FAQ.

8. Unless you are deliberately misspelling words, please spell check your Mock Blog before posting. I suggest that you write it in a word processing program rather than directly into LJ, but that's your call.