C. L. Norman

Another month has gone and a new one has started. May always feels like the beginning of something to me. The flowers are blooming, the weather is changing and warming up, and school is wrapping up. Everything is transitioning and in some ways this feels more like the start of a new year than January 1st.

Reading

I read Bewitched and Betrayed by Lisa Shearin. It is the fourth in the series and it just keeps getting better. Raine is the perfect protagonist who keeps landing both feet in a lake of trouble and sinks fast. Mychael, the perfect paladin, reveals that he has more than a touch of the rogue in him. Tam, the dark mage goblin, has a fairly small part in this book but a memorable one. Lisa also has a talent for writing in a traditional fantasy setting using modern language that pulls the modern reader in. I am already having trouble waiting for the next one.

Charlaine Harris’ new Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead in the Family, is out this Tuesday so you know what I will be reading when I get out of work then. The combination of the humor, the complicated love life, the who-done-its, and the ever growing cast of characters keep me coming back for more. I am very excited for this one.

Writing

I proved I could write a short story in a few hours Monday. I found out the deadline for a workshop I wanted to participate in was the date received by not the date mailed and suddenly I lost two days. I could have sent in one of the stories I have out in submission but that felt like “cheating” to me and so I wrote something. I read the first six pages on Wednesday night for the Open Mic Night at B&N and everyone seemed to enjoy it. However as I was nearing the end of what I was writing, yet again it seems that I am not writing a short story. I am writing either a prologue or the first chapter of something much longer. This is just further proof that I need to start writing (and more importantly finishing) novels.

Thursday I tried to start and finish my #flashfriday submission because I worked on Friday. All I managed was an intoduction to the protagonist. And then he wouldn’t stop yammering in my head. I have never had that experience before and it was almost unnerving and definitely distracting. After a particularly irreverent comment on a magazine I was putting out at work, I firmly told him to be quiet until I could sit in front of a computer. Since then he has been unusually well behaved for him and I need to smack him until he goes back to normal. Normal for him that is.

Writing Events

Saturday night, Patricia Briggs was in the store for a signing for her latest Mercy Thompson book, Silver Bourne.  I spent about 20 minutes chatting with her husband, Mike. He gave great insights into a writer’s life and especially their beginnings. Nap time will never sound the same again. I will be seeing them again at the end of May at convention in Missoula. Hopefully I won’t be so in awe of her writing that I can’t talk to them both as friends.

That was my week, how was yours?

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