Story on the Brain

I remember loving these books as a child but I had forgotten how much I skipped over. Re-reading childhood favorites is dangerous, but in the case of the Dark Is Rising books, you really should not do it. What I loved was the Drew children, because Stone Over Sea is a wonderful book and I kept reading to get more of them. But everything having to do with Will Stanton was so outrageously irritating, I nearly didn't finish the fifth book, Silver on the Tree. Good lord. He magically gets all these outrageous powers with no effort, goes through all this pointless contrived rigamarole, then is a rarefied Old One and crucial to the survival of the world. He's all smug and humble and knows more than everyone. I just could not stand Will Stanton. First off, I hate it when people get superpowers without any cost. Second, Will is boring. He just is. He doesn't have to fight for anything and he gets all the credit, whereas the Drew kids are way more fun and do much more of the work. T...

But I DO have standards. And by "not hierarchical" I mean, my standards are not higher than someone else's, or lower, or whatever. They're just mine, see? For instance I'll never read a Dan Brown book because a Trusted Resource told me they are incredibly badly written, along the lines of the Left Behind series, one of which I actually read once but it was because I was teaching a class called Heaven and Hell, okay? It was for work! Oh good golly those books are so very very badly written. YIKES. So anyway. On the other hand, I read and adore a lot of things that your standard judger of literary quality wouldn't maybe find so very high on the list. Also I might punch out a judger of literary quality who said bad things about Meg Cabot or, I don't know, Stargate Atlantis. Which I realize is a tv show, but it's the same thing, see? Here are my standards: 1) Things have to happen. I cannot stress this enough. There has to be a STORY. You have to be able t...

Okay, I got the outline done at least in large strokes for the cozy mystery. It involved a lot of talking out loud to the computer and then petting the cat, who comes running if I talk out loud. Also I invented the Bryson Grant, which sends people to travel around the world recording oral history, or in this case, oral mystery. I'm way too tickled about the Bryson Grant. Also, I totally want one! Mostly I got things done because I was ranting and raving about how happy writing makes me, like happy in a slightly deranged way, like somehow I got cross-wired and writing presses the endorphin button and leans on it. Seriously, it's not normal. And then my friend said, "So what are you writing now?" and I gave the thumbnail, and then said, "But I'm stuck on the outline." Then I decided I HAD to whack it into shape this weekend, before I get students turning in paper drafts on Monday. I need my road map! It turns out I was trying to throw everything into the s...

Go and read! You don't have to have read The Demon's Lexicon to read this, but the characters are mentioned or appear in it at a much later date. This is a gorgeous, heart-breaking story. Sarah knows how to do it right!