hopefulmorning

There were two grammar Nazis in my writing group. Their editing was pretty epic. I never realized how esoteric a topic grammar can become. They got into some insane debates over areas of grammar that I had no idea could be such a hot topic. I did invest in the Chicago Manual of Style because of them, but have yet to really crack it open.

I didn't know this! That's awesome! I'll have to incorporate this into my vocabulary now. This link made my day. I have a close friend who's a marine biologist and I sent this to her, which resulted in much cackling. I can understand the feeling cheated part. What starts to happen to me is this war between feeling cheated if I don't finish the book, or feeling cheated by wasting my time on something that could've been spent reading a much better book.

Yeah, I'm getting better. I had been part of a local writer's group for a little bit, and I started to get the hang of it more. I remember at one point making a statement about how I just really had a difficult time with liking the heroine of this guy's story, and his response was, "That's good! She's not supposed to be easily likable!" Things like that really helped me to see the value in focusing responses on your reactions vs. how you think they should change the story. The only time I'll make a statement somewhat along the lines of 'this needs to be changed' is when I find a passage extremely confusing. I'll point out what I find confusing, and then leave it at that.

Hahahaha!! I can totally relate to this. At one point I was like, "If Robert Jordan says 'she crossed her arms under her breasts' one more time...I'm throwing this into the fire!" His character development stuff is lacking somewhat, but the world building is brilliant, which was what got me through to where I did. Nynaeve grew on me. I like Aviendha EXCEPT where it pertains to Rand. I loved Min from the start. Egwene (sp?) annoyed me from the get go and still does. Mat is now starting to grow on me some after the whole knife situation. Perrin I just want to slap and tell him to get over it with his whole wolf thing, and Jordan pairing him with Faile was just...fail.

I'm new here, and have been acclimating myself to the different things this place has to offer. I'm curious about the guilds and some of the RP type game play going on in the communities, but haven't really found a cumulative explanation of it all. How does all of that work? Are there any forum posts that go into those details?

I think some of the problem with readers is just not knowing how to be a good reader for critique. Brandon talks about this some in 'Writing Excuses,' and in his online lecture series with Brigham Young. It's within the first three lectures. One of the best books I ever read on this topic is Orson Scott Card's book 'How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.' There's a chapter dedicated on good readers for manuscripts and what to request from them. Sometimes just telling people what kind of feedback you're looking for really helps.

I'm having similar difficulty with Martin's series. I've tried multiple times to get into it, but I just get the blah's about it and don't want to continue. Then feel like I need to start over when I decide I want to try again, and it just becomes this vicious cycle. Maybe if the series actually gets finished I'll read it through at that time. I got stuck with WoT too. I got to book 4 and needed to go cleanse my pallet with something else. It's been awhile with reading them, and I really want to start them again, but don't want to start over. My husband said there's a woman who has a blog that's quite literally a summary of each chapter of all the books. I may try that instead.

It's so funny I was just asking about this on a different thread because I couldn't find a list about it, and NOW I'm finding the articles concerning it. :-) Heh. Typical. I'm working through MB now. I was reading that you could take a couple different paths. You could go into the next phase of MB, or start on 'Elantris' and 'Warbreaker', which I'm thinking of doing next just to give myself a break from the MB universe.

"The Witch's Daughter" by Paula Brackston. It started off as very urban fantasy with Wicca influences, which was great. I thought it was going to have some time travel elements due to the back cover description kind of hinting at that, but it wasn't that AT ALL. Then there's the big bad warlock, which had some really creepy, rapey elements and the main character knowing this and still somewhat falling for him and just...ick...blech. ::shudders:: Nope. The characters were difficult to relate to along with being poorly developed to the point where certain scenes would happen and the reactions were obviously the author railroading them. Basically, I just can't subject myself to reading it anymore. It's too bad because apparently it was a NY Times bestseller so I had a lot of high hopes going into it.

I was really disappointed in the second and third Hunger Games books. The way the PTSD was done was extremely tropy. My ex husband has severe PTSD, and so it was really obvious to me that she hadn't done her research other than maybe reading some articles. Plus, I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES!!!! They're one of my biggest pet peeves. They really lower my respect for an author's writing if they have to use something like that to make enough 'drama' for their character, and they have a tendency to really lower the impact of a strong, female character because the focus becomes she has to be with a guy to be valuable instead of the focus being on how much of a bad chull she is. I never finished this series. I had read the first two, tried reading the third when it came out, but lost interest. I've since not been able to bring myself to read it just because I've gotten a bit tired of the traditional human, elves, dragons, etc. fantasy. It has to be amazing for me to want to read it and keep reading it. This is part of why I love Sanderson's work so much. He's been breathing in fresh life into fantasy. I did this already, haha, and was just kind of 'blah' about it. I've finally decided I'm just going to donate it. I primarily read fiction for enjoyment, and since this book really isn't bringing me much enjoyment I'm going to just let it go and move on.

Have you ever started a book with high hopes, and then became more and more disappointed to the point where you don't even want to finish the book? When in those situations, did you finish the book or didn't you? Have you regretted your decision either way? I had started a book in between reading WoA and HoA that I thought would be a light, fun, urban fantasy type romp. I was SORELY disappointed. The completionist in me wants to finish the book, while the reader in me doesn't want to be subjected to the book anymore and just wants to get rid of it. I'm at a loss with what to do, and would love to hear what any of you have to say on the matter.

Thank you so much! I'm currently reading HoA and 'Firefight' at the moment. I was planning on reading 'Elantris' followed by 'Warbreaker' next so that will work out well! I'm trying to wait on WoK due to wanting to start it closer to when the third book is coming out so that it lessens the length of waiting. My husband absolutely loves that series, and I'm not the most patient person when it comes to waiting. :-)

I apologize in advance if this list has been done, and I'm just blind and can't find it. If it has, then please point me in its direction. I was wondering what is the best order of reading Sanderson's books when it comes to the Cosmere? I've been searching through various forums, but there's a lot to sift through, and I'd rather just ask the question - even if it's a repeat - to preserve my sanity. Thanks!

Any further news on White Sand? I read his blog posts and the tweets. I even found a little something on The Coppermind. I was just wondering if anything further had been released?

I've been wanting to build my own dev box, and have been doing some research into it. Due to a major move coming up for me, I probably won't be able to get started until early next year. When I get closer to making it happen, I plan on keeping a detailed account of the research and processes.