accountability

Looks like I'm having a hard time keeping myself on the editing track.  That might be because I have no deadlines.  If any of you lovely readers are interested, I can send you a serialized version of my current novel (Awake).  The first ten or so chapters are finished (i.e. edited and readable), while the rest of the story is finished, but unpolished.

If you're interested, leave me a comment, or send me an email to awakenovel (at ) g m a i l (dot) com (don't want the spam-bots to get me!).

Persepolis

Took me a little while, but I've finished Persepolis (part 1).  Like Delisle's Pyongyang, I went into this story not knowing a whole lot about the culture behind it.  

The story was a little slow, but if the narrator is to be believed (and since the book is labeled "memoir", I think she can be), Iran was not a nice place to grow up in the early 80's.  I'm looking forward to reading the second part -- possibly even watching the movie after that.

Comic?

Today I finished reading my first graphic novel.  While superhero stories and stuff with a lot of violence isn't my favorite thing, I've shied away from them for a long time.  But after talks from my sister (who just wrote a short graphic novel), and seeing Persepolis everywhere, I thought I'd see what was out there.

The one that immediately caught my attention was Guy Delisle's Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea.  I love to travel, so realizing there are a handful of countries out there I'll never be able to visit simply because I'm American leads me to be curious about that place.  Once I saw pictures of North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel (and how creepy it is), I thought a little research about it might be worth my time.  (I mean, talk about secluded: Google maps doesn't even have anything labeled in that country!)  So when I saw this graphic novel, I was intrigued.

The story impressed me.  No one turned into a robot, and there were no vampires.  With pictures accompanying the text, reading was almost like watching a movie ... or almost like being there.  I guess there's the appeal of comics!  Well worth checking out: the author mixed humor and curiosity into a very strange subject.

No Loafing

I haven't been getting as far as I wanted to with the novel.  It's April, and I've been finished with the first draft since, what, January?  At the latest?  I've got to say I have my work cut out for me: in addition to cutting nearly 30,000 words, I'm having to smooth out some seriously rough text (including some wooden characters).

My biggest problem is finding better stuff to do on my computer than edit (damn this wireless internet connection!).  Now I have 62 quality pages (as in, all the junk has been taken out, I've smoothed it over, and run it through autocrit), and 407 to go.

Also, happy Easter, everyone.  Christ is risen!