Stephanie Gunn

I’ve been thinking for the last few days, trying to compile a list of books that make me want to write/be a writer/write better.

This has been more difficult than I thought it would be.

I have a huge list of favourite books, but not all of them make me want to be a better writer.  Which you can also interpret as: oh Gods, I’m never going to write a book as good as this.

My list, so far, consists of only three books:

1 – Imajica – Clive Barker

2 – House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski

3 – Palimpsest – Catherynne M. Valente

These books are all so lush – rich language and words, vivid characters.  All of them create worlds that I wish I could walk in.

If I only ever write a book 10% as good as any of these, I’ll be happy.

13/20 chapters of Shaede converted to note form.

I’m going through and checking bits of continuity and the like as I’m reading through. Fixed up a few things, and have done some minor revisions to scenes that don’t work. I ended today on one scene that does need more work. Bah.

Despite that, I am surprised at how together this book is. When I was doing the major edits a few months ago, I really felt as though it was fragmented and quite frankly, crap. I don’t feel that now. I feel proud of it.

I’ve also had an epiphany on reworking the beginning of Daemon as well as some of the central plotlines. It makes me happy, and of course I’m now itching to get to work on it again. I’ll have these notes finalised within the week, so I can get back to the fun stuff. Of course, now I’m tempted to start over from the beginning. Must resist that urge.

I finally got my hands on copies of Charles de Lint’s “Samuel Key” books. Fascinating to read them in the order in which they were published, because you can really see de Lint improving as a writer. The first book, Angel of Darkness, while intriguing, is really thin on the ground, both in terms of writing ability and plot. I’m currently reading the third Key book, I’ll Be Watching You, which is lightyears away from the first two books. It is recognisably de Lint, and it is good.