...Editing... EXCERPT
July 1st 2007 03:53
So, I'm editing Moonshadow, and let me tell you first hand it's living hell. I've barely been able to get past the first five chapters. Not because the book sucks... actually, it's surprisingly good. No, it's because 'motivation' is, at this point, a taboo word for me to speak. I can't actually get the motivation to open the file and EDIT. It's too painful; bad me, I know.
I promised myself I'd finish editing tonight. That was murdered by going out of town; I simply cannot edit a novel in one night. Oh, I can clean my room in a night, but that's DIFFERENT. I can read a book, 400 or more pages, in less than 24 hours, but I can't edit one in that time. Because the latter is much more painful. To actually go through a story and edit it is boring to me; I could be surfing the net, watching videos on bloody well Youtube, reading that Anne Rice book... just about anything.
Speaking of Anne Rice. She's one of those writers that makes me feel horribly amateurish. Her style HUGELY influences the narration of my novel Moonshadow and of quite a few poems. Here's an excerpt from the one I'm reading now, Lasher, which makes my scenes feel horribly inadequate. If I spelled that right.
---------
He bent down to kiss her like a bird coming to the edge of a pool, that swift, with the heady beat of wings, and the inundation of that fragrance as if it were an animal smell, a warm scent like the good scent of a dog, or a bird when you take it from its cage; his lips covered hers, and his long fingers slipped up around her neck, thumbs gently touching her jaw and then her cheeks, and as she tried to flee deep into herself, alone and locked away from all pain. She felt a swift delicious sensation spreading out in her loins. She wanted to say, This will not happen, but she was caught so off guard by it that she realized he was holding her upright; he was cradling her in his fingers, by her neck, tenderly, and perhaps his thumbs were pressed right against her throat. The chills ran over her, up her back, down the backs of her arms. Lord, she was swooning. Swooning.
--------
((Some loyally wedded woman that Gifford is))
While it's not Lestat, best vampiric narrator EVER, it's still Anne Rice, and still makes me feel like a horrible writer. Here's an excerpt from my own piece, Moonshadow: (Riana's a demon, Andre's her vampiric lover. Cool, huh?)
--------
He looked away, as if searching for the words. The silence that filled the room was unbearable. At least there was one thing that was human I could understand-love. I felt it so deeply for Andre. The most foolish of all human emotions. I looked at him, wondering what he thought of me. What he thought I searched for. He came around the desk and put his warm hands on my shoulders, something of a smile on his face. Desire shot through me, filling me with a longing that was almost human in nature. I stood up and held him to me for a moment, and then things happened. I kissed him and he kissed back with a sort of ferocity that of all my human-ish lovers, only he possessed. Kisses were exchanged as he pushed me through the door, back towards the bed.
Fingers trailed down each other's backs. Each of us removed the other's clothes in a frenzy. Trails of fire ran along my skin whereever his fingers had been the moment before. We held each other passionately as we toppled onto the bed-as we did, he kissed my neck, digging his fangs in, tasting my blood, enjoying its sensation. Taking my blood.
The vampiric kiss. What not to fear, right? Should he take too much, a mortal would die. But I was no mortal. Andre took only a taste, and I trusted him completely. We satisfied our desire in just a little while that night.
----------------------------- ------------
Now, I have little experience with erotic encounters, so there's a bit of fade to black... and a bit of detail there. But jeez, I feel so amateurish sitting there and comparing my own work to Anne Rice's. There are similarities in style, as hers influences mine a lot, but there are also differences, and one of them is quality. I'm not going to all out diss myself and say my writing sucks massively, because I know I'm pretty good. (Apparently I write like a sixteen year old).
But... seriously... I feel so... outdone. So seriously and completely beaten by her quality, her style, the strength of her voice. I feel like my work is a piece of crap that will never, ever compare and I'm probably right. For example, the story sags badly in the middle because NOTHING HAPPENS, because the middle is literally the between point: one story line to the next, with nada in between... although I have a good idea to pass some of the time.
Now that I opened the file to get the excerpt, time to stop complaining about how much it sucks and start editing!
I promised myself I'd finish editing tonight. That was murdered by going out of town; I simply cannot edit a novel in one night. Oh, I can clean my room in a night, but that's DIFFERENT. I can read a book, 400 or more pages, in less than 24 hours, but I can't edit one in that time. Because the latter is much more painful. To actually go through a story and edit it is boring to me; I could be surfing the net, watching videos on bloody well Youtube, reading that Anne Rice book... just about anything.
Speaking of Anne Rice. She's one of those writers that makes me feel horribly amateurish. Her style HUGELY influences the narration of my novel Moonshadow and of quite a few poems. Here's an excerpt from the one I'm reading now, Lasher, which makes my scenes feel horribly inadequate. If I spelled that right.
---------
He bent down to kiss her like a bird coming to the edge of a pool, that swift, with the heady beat of wings, and the inundation of that fragrance as if it were an animal smell, a warm scent like the good scent of a dog, or a bird when you take it from its cage; his lips covered hers, and his long fingers slipped up around her neck, thumbs gently touching her jaw and then her cheeks, and as she tried to flee deep into herself, alone and locked away from all pain. She felt a swift delicious sensation spreading out in her loins. She wanted to say, This will not happen, but she was caught so off guard by it that she realized he was holding her upright; he was cradling her in his fingers, by her neck, tenderly, and perhaps his thumbs were pressed right against her throat. The chills ran over her, up her back, down the backs of her arms. Lord, she was swooning. Swooning.
--------
((Some loyally wedded woman that Gifford is))
While it's not Lestat, best vampiric narrator EVER, it's still Anne Rice, and still makes me feel like a horrible writer. Here's an excerpt from my own piece, Moonshadow: (Riana's a demon, Andre's her vampiric lover. Cool, huh?)
--------
He looked away, as if searching for the words. The silence that filled the room was unbearable. At least there was one thing that was human I could understand-love. I felt it so deeply for Andre. The most foolish of all human emotions. I looked at him, wondering what he thought of me. What he thought I searched for. He came around the desk and put his warm hands on my shoulders, something of a smile on his face. Desire shot through me, filling me with a longing that was almost human in nature. I stood up and held him to me for a moment, and then things happened. I kissed him and he kissed back with a sort of ferocity that of all my human-ish lovers, only he possessed. Kisses were exchanged as he pushed me through the door, back towards the bed.
Fingers trailed down each other's backs. Each of us removed the other's clothes in a frenzy. Trails of fire ran along my skin whereever his fingers had been the moment before. We held each other passionately as we toppled onto the bed-as we did, he kissed my neck, digging his fangs in, tasting my blood, enjoying its sensation. Taking my blood.
The vampiric kiss. What not to fear, right? Should he take too much, a mortal would die. But I was no mortal. Andre took only a taste, and I trusted him completely. We satisfied our desire in just a little while that night.
----------------------------- ------------
Now, I have little experience with erotic encounters, so there's a bit of fade to black... and a bit of detail there. But jeez, I feel so amateurish sitting there and comparing my own work to Anne Rice's. There are similarities in style, as hers influences mine a lot, but there are also differences, and one of them is quality. I'm not going to all out diss myself and say my writing sucks massively, because I know I'm pretty good. (Apparently I write like a sixteen year old).
But... seriously... I feel so... outdone. So seriously and completely beaten by her quality, her style, the strength of her voice. I feel like my work is a piece of crap that will never, ever compare and I'm probably right. For example, the story sags badly in the middle because NOTHING HAPPENS, because the middle is literally the between point: one story line to the next, with nada in between... although I have a good idea to pass some of the time.
Now that I opened the file to get the excerpt, time to stop complaining about how much it sucks and start editing!
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