Wednesday, November 24, 2010

24

Taking the evening off last night appears to have helped.  Fenlock and Zora reached Sargasso a few minutes ago and Fenlock had the cypherpede stuck in his ear.  The Fenlock parts are my favorites to write.  Since I'm going to be crunched for time for the next few days, I might stick with the Fenlock parts up until he and Zora encounter the rest of the group.

I keep toying with the idea of stopping forward progress on Wandering the Web of Worlds and revising the beginning. Instead of having Valaric wait for the other magicians to arrive at his house, I think he'll send out some letters and go visit others personally.



I started reading Dan Simmons' Hardcase last night and it's the best book I've read in a few months.  While it's unabashedly inspired by Richard Stark's Parker books, it doesn't stray into ripoff territory like other books I won't mention that feature Nolan and are written by Max Allan Collins.

The next thing I write will definitely be a crime novel, small town noir featuring my gravedigger character.  It's tough coming up with a crime plot that isn't like one I've already read.  Mine's definitely going to involve a murder made to look like suicide, alleged blackmail, real blackmail, and probably meth dealers.

3 comments:

  1. I left a comment but it never appeared. Did you censor it? I think you took a cheap shot at my Nolan series, which I have always been up-front about being a Parker pastiche. The first book was written when I was in college, and the Nolan character died at the end. When a publisher offered to do a series if I would "un-kill" Nolan, and I asked Don Westlake what he thought -- he was my friend and mentor and liked the book. He gave his blessing and was kind enough to say that the father-and-son aspect of the Nolan-and-Jon premise made it a different animal. Someday perhaps you will be successful enough to have people you don't know take cheap shots at you.

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  3. I apologize for the rip off comment. I did it for comedic effect. Sometimes I forget people actually read my blog. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the Nolan books that were reprinted by Hard Case and love the Quarry series.

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