I got distracted a couple of months ago, and since have had more than a minor infestation of procrastination bugs. Bloody things, harder to get rid of than bed bugs.
Once, while I was a US Navy pilot, I left the cockpit for two years for grad school. Getting back into flying was just about as hard as cranking up the blogger again. In the future, I will try to slog away even in times of distraction. There, I made a 2013 New Year's resolution.
I read a couple of interesting books recently. I read them at the same time. Before ebooks, I frequently had a history and a novel going simultaneously. I was reading away on Joy Castro's, Hell or High Water on my iPad when a friend finished James Patterson's Beach Road and gave it to me. I don't think I've really been able to appreciate "plot driven" and "character driven" before simo-reading those two books. I characterize Beach Road as plot driven. This book was also interesting to me because the first two chapters are in third person. Then each of the main characters presents his bit and piece of the story in the first person for 115 additional chapters. Interesting, and it worked, once I got past chapter 8. At chapter 8, I stopped, said what the heck is going on here?, and went back over 3 to 7. But I was hooked and flipped ahead a couple of chapters to see how those were presented. At the end the whole thing worked. That James Patterson, he might sell a book or two, I thought.
Once, while I was a US Navy pilot, I left the cockpit for two years for grad school. Getting back into flying was just about as hard as cranking up the blogger again. In the future, I will try to slog away even in times of distraction. There, I made a 2013 New Year's resolution.
I read a couple of interesting books recently. I read them at the same time. Before ebooks, I frequently had a history and a novel going simultaneously. I was reading away on Joy Castro's, Hell or High Water on my iPad when a friend finished James Patterson's Beach Road and gave it to me. I don't think I've really been able to appreciate "plot driven" and "character driven" before simo-reading those two books. I characterize Beach Road as plot driven. This book was also interesting to me because the first two chapters are in third person. Then each of the main characters presents his bit and piece of the story in the first person for 115 additional chapters. Interesting, and it worked, once I got past chapter 8. At chapter 8, I stopped, said what the heck is going on here?, and went back over 3 to 7. But I was hooked and flipped ahead a couple of chapters to see how those were presented. At the end the whole thing worked. That James Patterson, he might sell a book or two, I thought.
Joy Castro's book came across as powerfully in the character driven category, but the more I thought about it, not only did the main character provide motive force, but plot driver was in there too as well as a third propellant. The story is set in New Orleans, and some writers absorb the setting of the place into their veins and spill it out in ink. Ms Castro does it as well. Hell or High Water, in my mind, is character driven first, plot driven second, and setting driven third, and all three drivers as woven together in a very nice package. I enjoyed reading the book and learned something to boot. Cool, huh?