Wednesday, July 16, 2008

When Good Author's Go Bad




Yesterday was a roller coaster ride. Multiple rejects. Sad. Partial request. Happy. And Flopsy the duckling is no more. Big sad. Poor little guy. He tried so hard, but he just couldn't make it.

Writing? I got nothing done. I did however get quite a bit of thinking done. I thought about a lot things. Life. The Universe. God. Sex. Death. Love. And why good authors turn bad.

You know it's true. I'm talking about the authors you love so much that their books are like crack. You need the fix. You reread them until the next release. Books one, two and three in the series are magicky, special crack just for you. Each new release is a happy sigh and an excuse to call in sick to work. Just you, the couch, the chocolate, and your magicky, special crack.

Book four comes along. You still like it. It's not as good as the first three, but you love the characters and you have to find out what happens next.

Book five. Book six. Your crack is no longer magicky and special. It's just crack. The characters haven't grown. (koff:Janet Evanovich:koff) The plot has wandered all over hither and yon. (koff:Terry Goodkind:koff) Will this freaking quest ever end? (koff:Robert Jordan:koff) Will we get a new plot or just rehash the same one over and over? (koff:Mary Higgins Clark:koff). Or the author has just plain jumped the shark with their plot. (koff:Laurell K Hamilton:koff).

You know you should quit reading. You know they aren't good anymore. Is it pressure to keep cranking out books one after the other? Did they only have so many stories to tell? Did they get too full of themselves? IDK, but either way, you can't quit. It's your crack.

You swear that you won't buy the next one. The last one is still freakin' embedded in the wall from where you threw it after the last preposterous twist. EVIL TWIN? GAH! NEVER AGAIN! But it happens. You go to the bookstore, weak from having nothing to read in days and there, face out, in hardcover, on the bestseller shelf it sits, taunting you with it's shiny fresh cover. You finger trails the spine longingly. You are weak. It is your crack. The big red sticker promises that this copy is 30% off the cover price.

Oh Dean Koontz! Why can't I quit you????

So who's your literary crack?

4 comments:

Elissa J. Hoole said...

ROFLMAO!
great post!

Jenifer said...

I feel much the same way about Dean Koontz! Alas, my boyfriend does not understand.

Last week I bought Forever Odd. The cover art was fantastic! The blurb on the back of the book made the story sound so good (and it was). Then I got home and saw the name on the cover. Sigh. Had to read it anyway, the promise of the story was so good!

A quarter through or more and we were packing to leave for New Mexico the next morning... ten hour drive. My new book is missing. A few hours after I'd been telling my boyfriend that reading Koontz is like swimming through rock-hard, but tasty, jello... I was ready to cry over not being able to find the book!

I still hate reading Koontz. I suspect I'll probably continue to do so. Why do we torture ourselves so!?

(It's still missing. Sigh...)

Kim said...

Janet Evanovich, without a doubt - even though the whole Stephanie/Ranger/Joe thing is getting old and really, how many cars can you have explode before no insurance carrier will write you a policy? But, I buy them each year, without fail... Though the newest has been out a month and I haven't quite gotten around to buying it.

Yet... =)

Mary B said...

I'm going on a cruise next week and my suitcase will include both Koontz and Evanovich. "sigh."

I need a fix.