It took a while for me to figure it out, but I get it now. Audiobooks are not a substitute for reading print material–not if you want to be a writer.
I found myself flipping through the pages of a Nyx Smith book I read years ago. I loved the book. It told a well crafted story that jumped off the page and into my imagination. More importantly, the way the words were shaped on the page–the size of the paragraphs and the length of the chapters; how it varied created a tension that is not possible in audio form. You cannot see it. You cannot recognize the chapter is about to end and know that a major moment is closing. When I wrote Imposter I had not read a physical book in over two years. That cannot stand.
Writing is a visual art. The pacing comes alive on the page. The way you lay things down from beginning to end is a reflection on your relationship with the reader. It shows in your writing how well you understand what good writing looks like on the page; the shape of such things.
I’d forgotten that.
Some Thoughts:
- Rock Bottom is not a place. It is an idea. It can happen at any station and any time. It is the understanding that things are not going to go well for you moving forward. It is seeing that and deciding in that moment to either carry on or fall apart.
- Perhaps there is a way to do both.
- On a lighter note, I played more Madden. I enjoyed it. Franchise is not ‘fixed’. Trade mechanics remain utterly broken. You still can trade your way to a fantastic team, screwing the CPU the whole way. I’m in a season ten years in the future and the Giants remain a bad team. However, my trades have made us competitive. We don’t have CBs. Not ones that can run our defense. I will look for that next. Perhaps I’ll address the deficit in the draft. At any rate, the offense looks like it will eventually be able to cook under Daboll. Yeah, a ten year sim didn’t remove that man from his spot.