January Update

Health/Fitness
I went for a twenty-mile bike ride last weekend! Because the weather was actually nice despite it being January.

I also gained 3 pounds last week because I ate tons of junk food. Oog. I did well on not eating too much the last couple of days, at least. Maybe it's the start of a new trend!

Writing
I think I wrote like half a scene since my last update. I'm at 8.5 scenes total for January, and two bullet points finished.

The Business of Writing
BOOK. I uploaded Further Arrangements to Amazon and Draft2Digital on January 31. I am not quite done with the book, though, because the print version is still in final stages and will need to be proofed and uploaded. Amazingly, the e-book version populated to all four stores within 36 hours and without any weird "why isn't it working the same way when I buy it from this outlet that it does when I looked at it before uploading and in the distributor's upload-page previewer?" glitches.

(Have I talked about this book launch enough yet? Here, let me post some more BUY links just in case ... Amazon ~ Kobo ~ Nook ~ iBooks)

I also did all the associated tasks with BOOK: cover art, dedication, acknowledgements, updated author bio, interior illustrations, book blurb, placement in SFWA's new release newletter, etc. It's a lot. Easier than last time, though.

Art/Other

• I had a goal of 13 headers and finished 15.


• I also did a number of Twitter-prompt sketches -- 12-15


• I did 14-16 or so sketches of hands. Maybe someday I can draw a hand that looks more than vaguely hand-like.


• Oh right and BOOK COVER. Plus some bonus interior images (title page for the collection, and also one for each story. Mostly because I'd already drawn more for the cover than actually fit on it.)

Socializing
I saw a couple of friends from St. Louis last weekend, and we went to the Toy & Miniature Museum. The miniatures were as amazing as I remembered. I want to shrink myself down so I can live in one of those dollhouses.

Happiness
A few bad patches, but overall, pretty good. I was very stressed out about the book launch on Sunday and Monday especially, but I'm mostly back to normal now.

Also, did everything on my goal list for January AND MORE so go me.

Goals for coming month
I am still feeling somewhat ground down by the effort of turning Further Arrangements into a book people can buy, so I don't want to make an ambitious list of goals. Let's go simple.

1. 17 headers. That'll take me through the end of the serial.


2. Talk to Alinsa about putting something on ladyrowyn.com other than a redirect to rationalarrangement.com. Probably nothing fancy, just an "I'm an author, here's my books, here's links to my LJ, Twitter, and RationalArrangment.com".


3. Write some fiction. Doesn't have to be Birthright. Doesn't have to be any particular quantity.

That'll be enough.

Kings Rising, by C. S. Pacat

This is the third book in a trilogy; I think it's the last, though perhaps the author will write something more about the characters.

I have many feelings about this series.  MANY FEELS. Of the three books, I liked the second, Prince's Gambit best. The first, Captive Prince, I found absolutely harrowing. The second was much less harrowing: there was still violence but it was less intimate: conflict rather than abuse. The difference between being under the constant threat of death and the constant threat of torture. IN THEORY, I should be more worried about death, but in practice I find the prospect of torture worse. Sometimes I wonder if that's a side effect of depression. When you're used to fantasizing about death as an escape, it doesn't seem nearly as terrifying as having to endure horrors much worse than the life that left you suicidal. Anyway, maybe it's just me, but I found the first book engaging but traumatic. The second book was a fantastic exploration of the characters, still with lots of conflict and tension, but also lots of "protagonists being brilliant and talented in order to improve their position".

Kings Rising opens with several chapters that I found even more harrowing than the first book, because now instead of horrible things happening to characters I didn't care about, these were inflicted on ones I loved. I found it powerful but, to my surprise, not unpleasant. Books that do horrible things usually make me want to stop reading, but here I just wanted to see what would happen next, whether it was awful or not. And I wanted explanations: a reason for some of the extreme emotional abuse being dished out. So that impressed me, that throughout reading it I never wanted to put it down. (I did, because I had to work, but I didn't WANT to.)

Kings Rising displays an emotional intimacy of considerable range: not just love and lust, but the kind of deep cruelty and pain that only happens when someone loves a person who mistreats them, whether by accident or design. There are many highs and lows, and I rode them often with glee. Even the lows; I think that's because this is a romance and I was depending on a happily-ever-after, rather than being abandoned in a pit of misery. This was also well-done and engaging.

Some of the characters in the book are brilliant planners, and there's a sense of wonder, the I-didn't-see-that-coming-but-I-should've, that I love when I see it well-done. Of all the things one can hope for in a romance, this is one of the least likely to get. Pacat delivers it, multiple times, through Kings Rising. Unfortunately, this means that when it's NOT delivered, it's all the more disappointing.

The climax in particular felt overwrought rather than brilliant. One of those where the characters are in way more trouble than it looks like they can possibly get out of, and then they manage it, and on the one hand you're glad, but on the other you're like "that rescue wasn't very plausible or brilliant". This is my problem with the common 'up the stakes' advice writers get: the more trouble protagonists are in, the more likely it is that the solution will throw me out of the story by seeming too unlikely.

But my biggest fault with the book is it ends like a page after the climax. I HATE THAT. If you're one of those people who likes Hollywood endings, where the credits roll 30 seconds after the protagonists win, then you will be fine with this. I am not fine with this. I don't want to get kicked out of bed right after the climax: I want some post-coital cuddling. SHEESH.  This one actually annoys me much more than the lack of brilliance in the climax, because I know how tough it is to balance a challenge for your characters. But how hard is it to write some pages of your characters dealing with other loose ends, or living happily together, or SOMETHING after the big resolution? I'm not asking to be blown away by cleverness here, I just want to have some denouement.

I am going to stop nitpicking here, because the truth is that my complaints are based in significant measure on my expectations. I expected a 9 or even a 9.5 from Kings Rising, and I only got an 8. And the disappointment will make me review it like a 7, and it deserves better than that. This is an emotionally powerful book with many brilliant moments and flashes of genius. It is a flawed diamond, to be sure, but still a diamond, and still recommended.