Marie Brennan's Blog, page 237
February 16, 2011
another month at SF Novelists
Man, I'm having a much harder time remembering to think up topics for my SF Novelists posts (and get them written on time) now that I've stopped doing the "writing women" series. Anyway, this month I muse on ensemble casts, and why I like them.
As usual, comment over there; no reg required, though if you're a first-time commenter I'll have to fish it out of the moderation queue.
As usual, comment over there; no reg required, though if you're a first-time commenter I'll have to fish it out of the moderation queue.
while I wait . . . .
View Poll: #1700868
Me, I prefer open-ended waiting, because then I can generally put the subject from my mind and move on to other things. But if I've been given a timetable, then I'm constantly distracted, and I get nothing done.
Yes, I'm waiting for something right now. Yes, I've been told it will happen sometime soonish. How did you guess?
Me, I prefer open-ended waiting, because then I can generally put the subject from my mind and move on to other things. But if I've been given a timetable, then I'm constantly distracted, and I get nothing done.
Yes, I'm waiting for something right now. Yes, I've been told it will happen sometime soonish. How did you guess?
February 15, 2011
Writing Fight Scenes: Where?
[This is a post in my series on how to write fight scenes. Other installments may be found under the tag.]
My apologies for the hiatus; I've been busy, and this is another one of those posts that requires me to pull together a bunch of things I don't normally think about consciously, ergo requires more brain-power than I was able to muster for a while there. But let's get back on the wagon, and ask ourselves the next important question: where are the combatants fighting?
As with the question of who's fighting, this often has a simple answer that turns out to have more packed inside it than you might think. Unpacking that can be useful for two reasons: first, well-placed description can bring the scene to life for the reader, and second, it can influence the course of the fight.
So, what aspects might you want to consider in setting your scene?
It starts with the space. How large is it? This, of course, determines how far your characters can move. What boundaries, if any, does it possess? Walls can be both an obstacle and a tool; cliffs, on the other hand, are pretty much just a hazard for all involved. How about exits, both existing and potential? Part of the fun of setting a fight in an Asian-type society is that rice-paper screens make lousy barriers to passage. I must admit, I have a serious weak spot for fights that use their space well. In Unleashed, for example, there's a fistfight in (I think) a very small bathroom; it consists almost entirely of elbows, as the combatants don't even have enough room to throw a punch. In The Transporter, there's a fight on a bus, which makes beautiful use of benches, poles, and so on. The first Pirates of the Carribean move takes a more tongue-in-cheek approach to this, when Will and Jack have their face-off in the smithy; the device of the cart catapults them into the rafters, giving the fight a three-dimensional quality not found in most duels. It's harder to get that level of play in prose, because it depends on the audience correctly understanding how the environment fits together and where the characters are in it, but step one is definitely for you to understand the space in which your scene takes place.
Next, consider footing. There's an episode of the TV show Highlander that features the combatants sliding all over a hardwood floor; if the tale I heard is true, that came about because they showed up to film and discovered a fresh coat of wax making the whole place slick as ice. (As a former stage combat choreographer, this makes my skin want to shudder right off my body. Talk about a freaking safety hazard.) Rocks can twist ankles, or slide out from under feet. Mud sucks, both figuratively and literally. Grass can tangle feet. Dust can be kicked up into the opponent's eyes. Is the area flat, or inclined in some fashion? The latter both threatens footing, and potentially gives somebody the advantage of higher ground. Different styles of fighting are better-suited to a given surface; if you're liable to slip, then you really don't want to be doing any kind of extended lunge at your opponent.
How about obstacles and/or props? Furniture and trees, curtains and rocks, small breakable knick-knacks to throw at the enemy, free-standing candelabra to fall over and light the place on fire. Some things hamper escape, if that's desired. Others can be used for defense, if you manuever to put them between you and your enemy. Many can be improvised weapons, especially for a character with a sufficiently creative and bloody mind. Remember, though, that these things often fall under Chekhov's authority; if an object is going to be important to the fight, the audience should know it's there before it comes into play. There are exceptions -- maybe the opponent suddenly snatches out a gun the pov character didn't know was taped to the underside of the table -- but on the whole, put things on the mantel before you need them.
Don't forget to think about environmental factors, either. Lighting is a big one, even aside from the beloved trope of circling to put the sun in your enemy's eyes -- which does in fact work, under the right conditions. (Reflecting sunlight off a blade is harder to arrange, though a clever swordsman could manage it.) If it's dim, you won't be able to see your opponent as well, and if he sees in the dark better than you do, you're at a real disadvantage. (True story: the first play I choreographed a fight for was Wait Until Dark, where I had to deal with a blind character, a sighted character, near-total darkness, and a knife. That was an interesting challenge.) Also consider temperature; heat makes people sweat and tire quickly, cold makes them go numb, and asthmatics will have a harder time breathing. Altitude is a serious handicap for people not used to it. Wind can fling around dust, hair, dry leaves, etc. Is there any precipitation? The opening staff brawl in Brotherhood of the Wolf is beautifully shot in rain, and shows some of the things that happen when you fight in a downpour.
You need to have a clear sense of these things before you can communicate them to the reader. How to do that communication is its own question, and indeed, at this point we start moving away from the opening questions and into the practicalities of actually writing the fight. I have one more thing to say about dealing with the setting of a fight, but it involves pictures, so I'll split that off into its own post (which will hopefully follow more quickly than this one did).
As always, the comments are open for discussion. What details of the environment did I miss? What neat illustrative examples can you suggest? Any questions for your own works in progress? Have at it.
My apologies for the hiatus; I've been busy, and this is another one of those posts that requires me to pull together a bunch of things I don't normally think about consciously, ergo requires more brain-power than I was able to muster for a while there. But let's get back on the wagon, and ask ourselves the next important question: where are the combatants fighting?
As with the question of who's fighting, this often has a simple answer that turns out to have more packed inside it than you might think. Unpacking that can be useful for two reasons: first, well-placed description can bring the scene to life for the reader, and second, it can influence the course of the fight.
So, what aspects might you want to consider in setting your scene?
It starts with the space. How large is it? This, of course, determines how far your characters can move. What boundaries, if any, does it possess? Walls can be both an obstacle and a tool; cliffs, on the other hand, are pretty much just a hazard for all involved. How about exits, both existing and potential? Part of the fun of setting a fight in an Asian-type society is that rice-paper screens make lousy barriers to passage. I must admit, I have a serious weak spot for fights that use their space well. In Unleashed, for example, there's a fistfight in (I think) a very small bathroom; it consists almost entirely of elbows, as the combatants don't even have enough room to throw a punch. In The Transporter, there's a fight on a bus, which makes beautiful use of benches, poles, and so on. The first Pirates of the Carribean move takes a more tongue-in-cheek approach to this, when Will and Jack have their face-off in the smithy; the device of the cart catapults them into the rafters, giving the fight a three-dimensional quality not found in most duels. It's harder to get that level of play in prose, because it depends on the audience correctly understanding how the environment fits together and where the characters are in it, but step one is definitely for you to understand the space in which your scene takes place.
Next, consider footing. There's an episode of the TV show Highlander that features the combatants sliding all over a hardwood floor; if the tale I heard is true, that came about because they showed up to film and discovered a fresh coat of wax making the whole place slick as ice. (As a former stage combat choreographer, this makes my skin want to shudder right off my body. Talk about a freaking safety hazard.) Rocks can twist ankles, or slide out from under feet. Mud sucks, both figuratively and literally. Grass can tangle feet. Dust can be kicked up into the opponent's eyes. Is the area flat, or inclined in some fashion? The latter both threatens footing, and potentially gives somebody the advantage of higher ground. Different styles of fighting are better-suited to a given surface; if you're liable to slip, then you really don't want to be doing any kind of extended lunge at your opponent.
How about obstacles and/or props? Furniture and trees, curtains and rocks, small breakable knick-knacks to throw at the enemy, free-standing candelabra to fall over and light the place on fire. Some things hamper escape, if that's desired. Others can be used for defense, if you manuever to put them between you and your enemy. Many can be improvised weapons, especially for a character with a sufficiently creative and bloody mind. Remember, though, that these things often fall under Chekhov's authority; if an object is going to be important to the fight, the audience should know it's there before it comes into play. There are exceptions -- maybe the opponent suddenly snatches out a gun the pov character didn't know was taped to the underside of the table -- but on the whole, put things on the mantel before you need them.
Don't forget to think about environmental factors, either. Lighting is a big one, even aside from the beloved trope of circling to put the sun in your enemy's eyes -- which does in fact work, under the right conditions. (Reflecting sunlight off a blade is harder to arrange, though a clever swordsman could manage it.) If it's dim, you won't be able to see your opponent as well, and if he sees in the dark better than you do, you're at a real disadvantage. (True story: the first play I choreographed a fight for was Wait Until Dark, where I had to deal with a blind character, a sighted character, near-total darkness, and a knife. That was an interesting challenge.) Also consider temperature; heat makes people sweat and tire quickly, cold makes them go numb, and asthmatics will have a harder time breathing. Altitude is a serious handicap for people not used to it. Wind can fling around dust, hair, dry leaves, etc. Is there any precipitation? The opening staff brawl in Brotherhood of the Wolf is beautifully shot in rain, and shows some of the things that happen when you fight in a downpour.
You need to have a clear sense of these things before you can communicate them to the reader. How to do that communication is its own question, and indeed, at this point we start moving away from the opening questions and into the practicalities of actually writing the fight. I have one more thing to say about dealing with the setting of a fight, but it involves pictures, so I'll split that off into its own post (which will hopefully follow more quickly than this one did).
As always, the comments are open for discussion. What details of the environment did I miss? What neat illustrative examples can you suggest? Any questions for your own works in progress? Have at it.
February 14, 2011
why, brain, why?
So I'm hauling laundry out of the dryer, and my brain randomly decides it wants to distract itself from the tedium by figuring out how to hack an RPG system to run a Wheel of Time game.
I have no intention of actually running a Wheel of Time game, mind you. But as I said to![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442897i/1319734.gif)
kniedzw
, I think it's the fanfic impulse gone sideways; there's stuff I really like about the setting, but also stuff that really annoys me, and a game would give me a way to mentally inhabit my preferred version of that world -- maybe even critiquing it in passing. I have no concept for such a game, and probably nobody to play in it anyway (since it would go best with people who know the series), but every so often my brain likes to play with mechanics, and today was one of those times.
Yeah, sure, there's already a rulebook for it. It's d20, people. Which may be the Official System for Epic Fantasy Gaming -- but it's abysmally unsuited to handle the magic paradigm presented in the novels. Anybody with an interest in system hacks or running their own Wheel of Time game is invited behind the cut to see how I would do it.
Let's start with what you need, based on what's said in the books. Channelers -- this post will largely be about channeling, since it's the most idiosyncratic thing you'd need to cover -- have a set strength in the Power, once they've reached their potential, so that should have a rating. Then they also have greater or lesser knacks for the five Elements, which (canonically) divide by gender. After that, you have specific weaves, each one built from one or more Elements; if the channeler isn't strong enough in a particular Element (or the Power as a whole) to manage the necessary components, he or she can't create the weave.
I thought briefly about doing it as an Ars Magica hack, replacing the Forms with the Elements: just borrow Auram, Aquam, Ignem, and Terram, toss in Spirit, and chuck the rest. On reflection, though, I think I would use nWoD Mage (whose setting doesn't interest me, but which I quite like as a generic and adaptable magic system).
You've already got Gnosis, which can serve to measure general strength in the Power. I'd probably jack this up to a twenty-point range, to give more gradation and map to the probable scale of saidar strength. Then replace the ten Arcana with the five Elements. To make overall strength meaningful, I'd probably say that a character's total rating in the Elements cannot exceed her capacity for the Power overall; if that latter rating is ten, then equal strength in each Element would give them all two dots. If you want her to be stronger at, say, Water, you have to drop something else. The gender difference among the Elements, if you want to include it, can be modeled by saying that a woman's combined aptitude for Earth and Fire cannot exceed her combined aptitude for Air and Water; vice versa for men.
Weaves, then, can be treated like rotes and improvised spells: any given effect is rated at a certain number of dots in each component Element, and if you don't have high enough ratings in the necessary Elements, tough luck, you can't do the weave. (Most weaves would likely be conjunctional effects, in this setting.) Toss out the covert vs. vulgar magic distinction. Not sure how I would handle the dice pool for improvised spells -- maybe Element + Willpower -- making it Element + Power (i.e. Gnosis) would be WAY overkill, given the altered scale for the latter. You want rotes to have the better dice pool, after all, representing the fact that the channeler in question has done that weave often enough to be quite practiced at it. The real hurdle, of course -- and this is always true for magic systems adapted from novels -- is that you have to decide how to rate every bloody thing the players might choose to do, from creating light to healing a severed target. (See also: why I may never run the Harry Potter game I sort of have in mind.)
For Talents like Foretelling and so on, plus non-channeling stuff like Min's talent or Perrin's wolf connection, I would graft the old World of Darkness Merit/Flaw setup onto the general nWoD system. You could adapt "Sphere Aptitude" to give a one-die bonus or some such to a given Element, or something like the nWoD "rote specialties" for particular kinds of weave a channeler might be good at; that way, you can create characters like what's-her-face among the Kin, the one who punches way above her weight class when it comes to shielding. I would treat the different Ajahs (as well as Wise Ones or Windfinders) as no-cost Merits, probably giving an additional dot to whatever ability the Ajah uses the most: Yellows get Medicine, Browns get Academics, Blues get Politics, Windfinders get Science (meteorology), etc., possibly allowing the ability to be raised up to six. (And yes, I would totally mash the Grays and Whites together as mediator-judges, and replace them with an Ajah of crafters. Whom I would probably call Purple. But I don't know what ability bonus Reds should get. Misandry?)
Not sure how to handle char-gen/XP, and the buying up of Power and Elements. I suppose it would depend on the game. If you're running something where the PCs start as novices in the Tower, pick an XP scale that works, and let them buy as they go; presumably the players will all want their characters to be strong channelers, so you don't have to worry about capping it, though if somebody deliberately wants to play a weak channeler they could have it as a Flaw. If it's a game about hundred-year-old full sisters, their capacity should probably be maxed out already, so in that case I'd set a basic starting value for the Power (four at a minimum, more if you want them to be badass) and say anything more has to be bought with bonus points at char-gen.
Edited to add: On reflection, I might also add in one or more new skills, to cover certain kinds of effects that don't really go under the usual skills. Something for connections, maybe, to be used in rolls for linking, shielding, and resisting someone's attempt to shield you, and possibly to sense the ability to channel in others (this would be where Reds get their bonus); something else for tying off or inverting weaves. Or you could just lump those all together under Occult, but it's already true in nWoD Mage that every other effect you think up could be done with an Occult roll, so it might be nice to spread stuff out a bit.
That's what I worked out while dealing with laundry. I'd be curious to hear alternative suggestions, whether tweaks to this basic concept or suggestions for entirely different systems to use as the base. I gravitate to WoD mechanics because I'm so familiar with them, but there's probably stuff out there that would work as well or better. (And certainly better than d20.)
I have no intention of actually running a Wheel of Time game, mind you. But as I said to
kniedzw
, I think it's the fanfic impulse gone sideways; there's stuff I really like about the setting, but also stuff that really annoys me, and a game would give me a way to mentally inhabit my preferred version of that world -- maybe even critiquing it in passing. I have no concept for such a game, and probably nobody to play in it anyway (since it would go best with people who know the series), but every so often my brain likes to play with mechanics, and today was one of those times.Yeah, sure, there's already a rulebook for it. It's d20, people. Which may be the Official System for Epic Fantasy Gaming -- but it's abysmally unsuited to handle the magic paradigm presented in the novels. Anybody with an interest in system hacks or running their own Wheel of Time game is invited behind the cut to see how I would do it.
Let's start with what you need, based on what's said in the books. Channelers -- this post will largely be about channeling, since it's the most idiosyncratic thing you'd need to cover -- have a set strength in the Power, once they've reached their potential, so that should have a rating. Then they also have greater or lesser knacks for the five Elements, which (canonically) divide by gender. After that, you have specific weaves, each one built from one or more Elements; if the channeler isn't strong enough in a particular Element (or the Power as a whole) to manage the necessary components, he or she can't create the weave.
I thought briefly about doing it as an Ars Magica hack, replacing the Forms with the Elements: just borrow Auram, Aquam, Ignem, and Terram, toss in Spirit, and chuck the rest. On reflection, though, I think I would use nWoD Mage (whose setting doesn't interest me, but which I quite like as a generic and adaptable magic system).
You've already got Gnosis, which can serve to measure general strength in the Power. I'd probably jack this up to a twenty-point range, to give more gradation and map to the probable scale of saidar strength. Then replace the ten Arcana with the five Elements. To make overall strength meaningful, I'd probably say that a character's total rating in the Elements cannot exceed her capacity for the Power overall; if that latter rating is ten, then equal strength in each Element would give them all two dots. If you want her to be stronger at, say, Water, you have to drop something else. The gender difference among the Elements, if you want to include it, can be modeled by saying that a woman's combined aptitude for Earth and Fire cannot exceed her combined aptitude for Air and Water; vice versa for men.
Weaves, then, can be treated like rotes and improvised spells: any given effect is rated at a certain number of dots in each component Element, and if you don't have high enough ratings in the necessary Elements, tough luck, you can't do the weave. (Most weaves would likely be conjunctional effects, in this setting.) Toss out the covert vs. vulgar magic distinction. Not sure how I would handle the dice pool for improvised spells -- maybe Element + Willpower -- making it Element + Power (i.e. Gnosis) would be WAY overkill, given the altered scale for the latter. You want rotes to have the better dice pool, after all, representing the fact that the channeler in question has done that weave often enough to be quite practiced at it. The real hurdle, of course -- and this is always true for magic systems adapted from novels -- is that you have to decide how to rate every bloody thing the players might choose to do, from creating light to healing a severed target. (See also: why I may never run the Harry Potter game I sort of have in mind.)
For Talents like Foretelling and so on, plus non-channeling stuff like Min's talent or Perrin's wolf connection, I would graft the old World of Darkness Merit/Flaw setup onto the general nWoD system. You could adapt "Sphere Aptitude" to give a one-die bonus or some such to a given Element, or something like the nWoD "rote specialties" for particular kinds of weave a channeler might be good at; that way, you can create characters like what's-her-face among the Kin, the one who punches way above her weight class when it comes to shielding. I would treat the different Ajahs (as well as Wise Ones or Windfinders) as no-cost Merits, probably giving an additional dot to whatever ability the Ajah uses the most: Yellows get Medicine, Browns get Academics, Blues get Politics, Windfinders get Science (meteorology), etc., possibly allowing the ability to be raised up to six. (And yes, I would totally mash the Grays and Whites together as mediator-judges, and replace them with an Ajah of crafters. Whom I would probably call Purple. But I don't know what ability bonus Reds should get. Misandry?)
Not sure how to handle char-gen/XP, and the buying up of Power and Elements. I suppose it would depend on the game. If you're running something where the PCs start as novices in the Tower, pick an XP scale that works, and let them buy as they go; presumably the players will all want their characters to be strong channelers, so you don't have to worry about capping it, though if somebody deliberately wants to play a weak channeler they could have it as a Flaw. If it's a game about hundred-year-old full sisters, their capacity should probably be maxed out already, so in that case I'd set a basic starting value for the Power (four at a minimum, more if you want them to be badass) and say anything more has to be bought with bonus points at char-gen.
Edited to add: On reflection, I might also add in one or more new skills, to cover certain kinds of effects that don't really go under the usual skills. Something for connections, maybe, to be used in rolls for linking, shielding, and resisting someone's attempt to shield you, and possibly to sense the ability to channel in others (this would be where Reds get their bonus); something else for tying off or inverting weaves. Or you could just lump those all together under Occult, but it's already true in nWoD Mage that every other effect you think up could be done with an Occult roll, so it might be nice to spread stuff out a bit.
That's what I worked out while dealing with laundry. I'd be curious to hear alternative suggestions, whether tweaks to this basic concept or suggestions for entirely different systems to use as the base. I gravitate to WoD mechanics because I'm so familiar with them, but there's probably stuff out there that would work as well or better. (And certainly better than d20.)
February 11, 2011
it brings joy to my heart
This video contains everything that is good and right about the world.
Sunshine, green grass; grace and athleticism on display.
An' a kitty.
Seriously, it's both adorable and gorgeous. Watch it.
Sunshine, green grass; grace and athleticism on display.
An' a kitty.
Seriously, it's both adorable and gorgeous. Watch it.
tickets make it official
日本に行くよ!
Having bought the plane tickets yesterday, I can now say with confidence that
kniedzw
and I are going to Japan!
I've been once before, briefly (over spring break my senior year of college); he's never been. We'll be heading down to Kyushu, where
kurayami_hime
is currently living, then enjoying about a week and a half of sightseeing in Kyushu and western Honshu. Our exact plans haven't yet been nailed down, but are shaping up to include Nagasaki, Kyoto, and points in between.
If you're familiar with that area, feel free to recommend things in the comments: sights to see, hotels or ryokan to stay in, etc. We'll be there during Golden Week, so this will need to be the kind of trip that's planned in advance, with reservations secured ahead of time.
(True story: when I was in Japan before, I arrived right when cherry blossoms were blooming in the Kansai region.
kurayami_hime
and I had vaguely planned to stay in Kyoto for three nights, starting on a Wednesday, but when we got to the city and went to make a reservation at a ryokan, there was a sign above the desk warning us "NO VACANCIES IN KYOTO FRIDAY OR SATURDAY NIGHTS." The entire city was sold out. So we stayed two nights instead of three, and that's how I ended up going to Takayama, which had not been on my original itinerary.)
Now I'd better get to work dusting off my language skills. It's been a long time since I really tried to speak Japanese . . . .
Having bought the plane tickets yesterday, I can now say with confidence that
kniedzw
and I are going to Japan!I've been once before, briefly (over spring break my senior year of college); he's never been. We'll be heading down to Kyushu, where
kurayami_hime
is currently living, then enjoying about a week and a half of sightseeing in Kyushu and western Honshu. Our exact plans haven't yet been nailed down, but are shaping up to include Nagasaki, Kyoto, and points in between.If you're familiar with that area, feel free to recommend things in the comments: sights to see, hotels or ryokan to stay in, etc. We'll be there during Golden Week, so this will need to be the kind of trip that's planned in advance, with reservations secured ahead of time.
(True story: when I was in Japan before, I arrived right when cherry blossoms were blooming in the Kansai region.
kurayami_hime
and I had vaguely planned to stay in Kyoto for three nights, starting on a Wednesday, but when we got to the city and went to make a reservation at a ryokan, there was a sign above the desk warning us "NO VACANCIES IN KYOTO FRIDAY OR SATURDAY NIGHTS." The entire city was sold out. So we stayed two nights instead of three, and that's how I ended up going to Takayama, which had not been on my original itinerary.)Now I'd better get to work dusting off my language skills. It's been a long time since I really tried to speak Japanese . . . .
February 10, 2011
downtime update
At this point, Swan Tower should be navigable again. This is not the same thing as pretty; there are various bits of formatting that need to be adjusted for the new layout, plus bad decisions of mine that were invisible in the old look but become glaringly, appallingly obvious (not to mention ugly) now that the background color has changed. It will take me some time to deal with those. But at least you can get at stuff again.
February 9, 2011
Perl help needed
I could use a spot of help from somebody who knows their way around Perl. The task at hand is to write a reliable script that can do a multi-line replacement across multiple files in multiple subdirectories -- to take X (longish) chunk of text and swap Y chunk into its place.
If you've got the skills to do that, and the free time to do it in the next day or so, please drop me an email at marie -dot- brennan -at- gmail -dot- com.
If you've got the skills to do that, and the free time to do it in the next day or so, please drop me an email at marie -dot- brennan -at- gmail -dot- com.
February 8, 2011
IMPENDING DOWNTIME
Since this blog is hosted separately from my website, the number of people this will directly affect is probably small, but:
Swan Tower (the website, not the journal) is about to get a major face-lift. As in, probably today. Please disregard the dust, hammering noises, and falling support beams that may occur during the process. I'll post again here when it's safe to venture back inside.
Swan Tower (the website, not the journal) is about to get a major face-lift. As in, probably today. Please disregard the dust, hammering noises, and falling support beams that may occur during the process. I'll post again here when it's safe to venture back inside.
February 7, 2011
I've missed this
You know what I love about reading fiction?
I can do it while walking places.
For the last four years, a large proportion of my reading has been nonfiction, most of it research for the Onyx Court. Which requires my attention to follow complex sentences and complicated arguments, and often I end up taking notes: not very compatible with strolling down the sidewalk. But if the book in my hands is a Dorothy Sayers mystery? I can jaunt off to the grocery store, no problem, and not feel annoyed that the walk is taking up valuable time, because I'm entertaining myself as I go.
No doubt whatever I write next will require some amount of research. But until then, I'm going to do my very best to read ALL the fiction.
I can do it while walking places.
For the last four years, a large proportion of my reading has been nonfiction, most of it research for the Onyx Court. Which requires my attention to follow complex sentences and complicated arguments, and often I end up taking notes: not very compatible with strolling down the sidewalk. But if the book in my hands is a Dorothy Sayers mystery? I can jaunt off to the grocery store, no problem, and not feel annoyed that the walk is taking up valuable time, because I'm entertaining myself as I go.
No doubt whatever I write next will require some amount of research. But until then, I'm going to do my very best to read ALL the fiction.
