Outside in

I just read a great book by Dave Duncan, who is one of my favourite authors. Another in the 'King's Blades' series, Paragon Lost. As with the others, he weaves a rollicking good tale, best read to soundtracks like Three Musketeers, Dragonheart and The Mask of Zorro. One thing that hit me while I was reading it, is that the entire book is written in third person limited point of view, using everyone except the main character! (At least, I don't remember many scenes from the MC's PoV) When I realized this, the writing took on a new level of interesting, in that I was impressed by the way he handled it. You almost wouldn't notice if you weren't looking, but lately I find I try to turn a critical eye to the books I read, if for no other reason that to add to my own knowledge of technique. At any rate, the book was good, and his use of PoV was just cool.

It goes to show, even while writing, keep reading, in and out of your genre. Everything going in will coalesce into that mystical concoction known as your own technique.

As for my own work, I've been letting life and work stand in the way too often. Must work on that. However, I'm still pounding away at my scene-by-scene breakdown, and the story is coming together. I think I'm heading for a bit of muddle in the early middle (say that a few times fast, I dare ya!), but we'll see. Nothing the revision can't smooth over, at least with a thick, red sharpie!

The one advantage to having a love of writing certain things by hand (there's just something about pen to paper, which I've gone on about before), is that you can't run out of power. Taking everything camping was great, save the cold last weekend. We took Friday and Tuesday off (Monday was a holiday here in Ontario) to get a camping getaway. Weather called for 8-16 degrees C all weekend, with a bit of rain. Hah! More like high of 8, with rain every night! Still, the days were nice, we got in some hikes, and kept the fire going when the rain wasn't coming down. That and turned on the heat in the tent trailer for the first time. Cold weekend, I tell you. It's May, so you always expect to have long shirts, short shirts, pants, shorts in any combination, but all three at once was a bit much. Always an adventure, which is why I love camping (car or backcountry, I'll take either).