Robin McKinley sort of reminds me of myself...
... insofar and inasmuch as we both have a sort of rambling style of writing. At present, anyway, though I appear to be more growing out of it (except apparently when I'm under the late influence of one of her books) or I'm feeling particularly contemplative. When I'm in a bad way then I myself can have trouble following some of my sentences, which stretch on years all by themselves and abuse various forms of punctuation most horribly. She does the same thing though, and she's a pretty darn popular published author.
Well. Her latest books do. Dragonhaven is thick to try and get through sometimes, though it seemed like an easier read the second time through. It seems to be coming for her instead of going though (this could have something to do with first person rather than third person narration), because Beauty (which was the first book she published, way back when in I think 1983, I think - oh the bits of random information you can pick up when looking for relatively unrelated things on the web) is quite straightforward and everything far more organized. At least as much as something like that book can be organized, at least. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and is a wonderful book which I would seriously suggest to anyone who likes fantasy of any kind or romances or fairy tales or books in general, really.
It's a funny story, but back when I was working at B&N there was a lady who came in and asked me for recommendations. I led her straight to Beauty and she then told me that she didn't like rereading books (which I don't particularly understand but oh well) and how she wouldn't do it almost ever. Sometimes, she said, if she really liked a book she would read it 2 times. Beauty she had read 5.
I think that she sort of trusted my recommendations quite a lot after that.
Anyway. The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword always seem to be the books by her that get all the publicity, though I personally haven't read either of them and when I tried reading the one (I don't even remember which one it was now) and didn't find it all that interesting, for all the rewards. I didn't much care for Rose Daughter either, which was her second stab at Beauty and the Beast, nor Spindle's End, which was a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I never even managed to finish SE, though I keep on thinking I need to go back and reread it and see if it's improved any as I get older. I might not have gotten through Dragonhaven either, if I'd picked it up instead of Spindle's End, whenever it was. And then we hit books like Beauty and Dragonhaven and Sunshine and Deerskin in an odd sort of way which I inhale and so I'm not even sure. (Deerskin was odd and confusing and somewhat disturbing in places - but then again the entire premise is about this princess who gets raped by her father multiple times because he lost his mind and her mind sort of shuts down and she loses her memory and runs away as a result. I guess that's to be expected - the odd and confusing and disturbing bit.) I really like her as an author sometimes, other times her books just do not interest me. And it's more or less an even mix, which is really unusual for me. Normally if I like an author I will devour everything they touch and while they might do the occasional thing I dislike overall I love most of what they do. On the flip side occasionally there's authors I hate everything of except one book - this doesn't happen often, but it's more common then the half and half thing too.
I want to write but I'm not sure what about and I need to draw but I don't want to. I want to write. Oh well, I need to get better at that anyway. I need to start writing consistently again and forcing myself to write when I don't feel like it. Original stories too; I have one that I've literally been working on since I was twelve and I need to do something with it. Everyone I know is always bugging me to finish one of my books one of these days and try getting it published, since they all say I'm a good enough author to do so. Confidence boost, I suppose, but I really don't think they'd be so persistent about it if I weren't at least decent, should I ever actually finish anything.
And is it just a thing that all the vampire books I like end right about as soon as things are really starting to get interesting? Or possibly that's a lie, but they do all seem to end at the fever-pitch of intrestingness and will leave you aching for more. This is also always accompanied by an author who either refuses to write sequels or who writes poor sequels if they're ever written, leaving you to almost wish for those days when you ached to see more, before you knew what that more would be.
And strike that bit about this being exclusive to vampire books.
On the off chance that I ever get published I probably won't write too many sequels either. None of the ideas that I have bouncing around in my brain seem the slightest bit seriesish anyway, in fact a lot of them seem like they wouldn't be good for anything but short stories, which I still need to finish. I just need to finish something, to force my way on through everything, which in theory shouldn't be too hard. I don't have a whole lot going on in my life but work right now, after all, and so I should be able to make some headway that way.
On a final note: I have now fished my way through 251 pokemon and no Feebas, probably because I spent so much of the day not fishing. Golly I hope nothing on my list was swarming today.
Well. Her latest books do. Dragonhaven is thick to try and get through sometimes, though it seemed like an easier read the second time through. It seems to be coming for her instead of going though (this could have something to do with first person rather than third person narration), because Beauty (which was the first book she published, way back when in I think 1983, I think - oh the bits of random information you can pick up when looking for relatively unrelated things on the web) is quite straightforward and everything far more organized. At least as much as something like that book can be organized, at least. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and is a wonderful book which I would seriously suggest to anyone who likes fantasy of any kind or romances or fairy tales or books in general, really.
It's a funny story, but back when I was working at B&N there was a lady who came in and asked me for recommendations. I led her straight to Beauty and she then told me that she didn't like rereading books (which I don't particularly understand but oh well) and how she wouldn't do it almost ever. Sometimes, she said, if she really liked a book she would read it 2 times. Beauty she had read 5.
I think that she sort of trusted my recommendations quite a lot after that.
Anyway. The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword always seem to be the books by her that get all the publicity, though I personally haven't read either of them and when I tried reading the one (I don't even remember which one it was now) and didn't find it all that interesting, for all the rewards. I didn't much care for Rose Daughter either, which was her second stab at Beauty and the Beast, nor Spindle's End, which was a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I never even managed to finish SE, though I keep on thinking I need to go back and reread it and see if it's improved any as I get older. I might not have gotten through Dragonhaven either, if I'd picked it up instead of Spindle's End, whenever it was. And then we hit books like Beauty and Dragonhaven and Sunshine and Deerskin in an odd sort of way which I inhale and so I'm not even sure. (Deerskin was odd and confusing and somewhat disturbing in places - but then again the entire premise is about this princess who gets raped by her father multiple times because he lost his mind and her mind sort of shuts down and she loses her memory and runs away as a result. I guess that's to be expected - the odd and confusing and disturbing bit.) I really like her as an author sometimes, other times her books just do not interest me. And it's more or less an even mix, which is really unusual for me. Normally if I like an author I will devour everything they touch and while they might do the occasional thing I dislike overall I love most of what they do. On the flip side occasionally there's authors I hate everything of except one book - this doesn't happen often, but it's more common then the half and half thing too.
I want to write but I'm not sure what about and I need to draw but I don't want to. I want to write. Oh well, I need to get better at that anyway. I need to start writing consistently again and forcing myself to write when I don't feel like it. Original stories too; I have one that I've literally been working on since I was twelve and I need to do something with it. Everyone I know is always bugging me to finish one of my books one of these days and try getting it published, since they all say I'm a good enough author to do so. Confidence boost, I suppose, but I really don't think they'd be so persistent about it if I weren't at least decent, should I ever actually finish anything.
And is it just a thing that all the vampire books I like end right about as soon as things are really starting to get interesting? Or possibly that's a lie, but they do all seem to end at the fever-pitch of intrestingness and will leave you aching for more. This is also always accompanied by an author who either refuses to write sequels or who writes poor sequels if they're ever written, leaving you to almost wish for those days when you ached to see more, before you knew what that more would be.
And strike that bit about this being exclusive to vampire books.
On the off chance that I ever get published I probably won't write too many sequels either. None of the ideas that I have bouncing around in my brain seem the slightest bit seriesish anyway, in fact a lot of them seem like they wouldn't be good for anything but short stories, which I still need to finish. I just need to finish something, to force my way on through everything, which in theory shouldn't be too hard. I don't have a whole lot going on in my life but work right now, after all, and so I should be able to make some headway that way.
On a final note: I have now fished my way through 251 pokemon and no Feebas, probably because I spent so much of the day not fishing. Golly I hope nothing on my list was swarming today.