Child of Fire reviews, part 15

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I’m only going to link to one this time: Compelling Women Who Kick Ass: Child of Fire by Harry Connolly written by Casey Lybrand.

I really enjoyed reading that review (and not just because it’s positive). It hits on a number of things I tried to do in the book, and also on ways that I know the book falls short. It’s also interesting in the way that a reader’s completely reasonable perception of a character can be so different from what I intended. There are still a lot of lessons to learn.

I’m also unsure if I should respond, and if so, how. I don’t want to be defensive, because the book has to stand for itself. I don’t want to talk about “Dumbledores” because if the author is the only one who knows a particular character is gay then does that even count[1]?

I don’t even know.

But this review touches on something that I’ve been trying to focus on: it’s easy to populate books with tv/movie types–good-looking folks who are pleasant to look at. I know why they cast roles that way, and I don’t blame them. I like looking at pretty people the same as anyone else.

There’s no reason to do that in a book, though. In books, you can “cast” a fat person in that dignified role as easily as a model, and you can include older folks, or whatever. You can show a truer representation of the world, because you’re working with words instead of faces.

But I’m not really sure how to talk about that.

[1] Toward a more accurate representation of the world, I mean.

“That’s so funny it makes me sad.”

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I had another good day working on The Buried King. I’ve pretty much stopped fretting about word count and daily goals–at this point I make note of the page I’m on when I start a session and the page I’m on when I stop. What the hell, right? Keeping careful records wasn’t getting the book done, so I’m not going to bother.

And with the release date for GAME OF CAGES coming up, I have a crazy load of writing to do. That means it’s time for a list! Here are all of the projects I have to complete by at least the middle of August (in no particular order).

  • A Big Idea piece for John Scalzi’s blog to promote Game of Cages.
  • Another chapter of The Buried King so my agent can send it to publishers.
  • A thorough, careful revision of the opening chapters of The Buried King.
  • A “shot list” or “shooting script” for the trailer for book 3, which is still called Man Bites World.
  • A selling synopsis for The Buried King.
  • Clean up chapters 2 and 3 of Game of Cages to post on the blog.
  • A write up of the next Kolchak episode.
  • A quick polish of an old project I can’t talk about.

And so on. I know there are a lot of writers who could do that in a couple of afternoons, but I’m slow slow slow. This will take me quite a little while to do, but I’m hoping to steal some time this weekend to cross some of these items off my list (and the Kolchak is pretty far down the list of priorities–Sorry to anyone who has been enjoying those).

On top of that, I’m expecting the copyedit for MBW at any time.

Back to the day job.