summer reading

I've been reading held stories this weekend, which is one of my favorite parts of being an editor. Usually I just settle in and enjoy, and then comes the ranking, this time no less difficult than any other. At some point, though, I turn it over to our production manager. She waves her little mathematical wand and boom! we have neatly scored stories. And then we get together for drinks dinner and hash them out to come up with an issue. Anyhoo, for those paying attention, we meet on 6/6 (at 6...oooo) for our production meeting, so you should know shortly thereafter. I'm going to have to kick ass on editing quick cuz we're down some help with this issue, and I leave the 10th for vacation. Yup. I'll be working on vacation...as usual.

I read something by Neil Gaiman that I found interesting:

I'll do what I normally do on holiday; spend a couple of days reveling in my freedom, and then by day three I'll start getting bored, and I'll begin to write a story.

I like to say the only day I don't write is Christmas Day, and sometimes I blog that day, so it may not be true at all. I think I've become one of those work-hard-play-hard types.

I just finished ANANZI BOYS by Gaiman. Very nice book--really enjoyed it. I have to say, though, Fat Charlie and his Richard Mayhew in NEVERWHERE really struck me as very much the same character. Somehow they seem lackluster and wimpy and then start to show their balls at about a third of the way through. It's a connundrum of character, reality vs fiction, to me. In RL, wimpy people are usually...wimpy. If they do stand up for themselves, its generally loud, clumsy, and with little real effect.

I've been doing character studies based on all showing, seeking out lines and passages, and I'm not sure it always works for me. Maybe I'm a bit of a dumb reader that way, I don't know. Gaiman really likes to tell, which he does charmingly. In AMERICAN GODS, which I'm halfway though, he limits his telling to hardly any at all, and I don't feel I know Shadow half as well as I knew, say, Spider. But obviously this king of contemporary fantasy is doing something right.

I'm also rereading THE MAGICIAN AND THE FOOL, which has sucked me back in just as effectively as it did the first time. Oh, and 2001 is riding around in my car just in case I get caught with nothing to do. I've got a goal of a book a week. Next Tuesday I leave for vacation and I hope to read through my stack of four books. I read fast, but that's ambitious, even for me.

So, reading reading reading. I'm also doing some revisions and no drafting. The cutting feels good, but no drafting makes for a cranky girl. I hope to get back to THE SILVER SCAR soon. On TV, Anne Boleyn has died on the Tudors and Robin rooted out his traitor on Robin Hood. Oh. And I'm seeing REM at Red Rocks on Tuesday, and you're not!