Trash, sometimes...but I read. Every now and then I'll buy a copy of "Entertainment Weekly" and read that. And I always get the "Hollywood" edition of "Vanity Fair", even though it's barely relevant, anymore. I actually read some of the articles in "DNA Magazine", an Australian gay rag that has lots of nearly naked guys in it who've been airbrushed within an inch of looking unnatural. I tried reading Sue Grafton but her style irritates me. I enjoyed portions of "Finishing the Hat" by Steven Sondheim (tho' that hardly counts as trash, even if it wasn't as revealing as I'd have liked). I'm now set to read "Fear of the Collar" and "The Longest War" to get back into my info gathering for "Place of Safety." I'm also going to reread "The Battle of Bogside", since an important chapter (or four) takes place during that.
So what did I do to prep myself for this dive back into some serious reading? Read book 9 of the Mark vincent gay-vampire-detective series, which has yet to be published. I love Kyle Cicero's characters and the situations he comes up with. He also puts in some interesting bits of Roman history.
I think reading that group of books helped me see I needed better characters in my work, and that's what set me up to go overboard with "The Lyons' Den." So far the consensus on this latest version is, the people populating the story are fun and fascinating and really weird, at times. Just like I wanted it.
I'm still in the process of proofing and editing, and the guy who's doing it has pointed out things that could be better that I'd never have even thought about -- like when Daniel exits the shower after a vicious argument with his ids (makes sense in the story, trust me), I had him grab a pistol and then wrap a shower curtain around himself as he headed for the door. Which would be awkward to do in reality. But which I never even looked twice at...until my editor pointed out it would be easier if he wrapped the curtain around himself first and THEN grabbed the pistol. And now I think it makes perfect sense that way. Duh.
Or...he wondered why another character left his pistol behind. To me, it was obvious he'd dropped it while climbing out a window...BUT it wasn't obvious to the reader. So I redid it and it segued into a neat little exchange between Daniel and Ace.
Who knows? Maybe this book will turn out to make sense after all.
So what did I do to prep myself for this dive back into some serious reading? Read book 9 of the Mark vincent gay-vampire-detective series, which has yet to be published. I love Kyle Cicero's characters and the situations he comes up with. He also puts in some interesting bits of Roman history.
I think reading that group of books helped me see I needed better characters in my work, and that's what set me up to go overboard with "The Lyons' Den." So far the consensus on this latest version is, the people populating the story are fun and fascinating and really weird, at times. Just like I wanted it.
I'm still in the process of proofing and editing, and the guy who's doing it has pointed out things that could be better that I'd never have even thought about -- like when Daniel exits the shower after a vicious argument with his ids (makes sense in the story, trust me), I had him grab a pistol and then wrap a shower curtain around himself as he headed for the door. Which would be awkward to do in reality. But which I never even looked twice at...until my editor pointed out it would be easier if he wrapped the curtain around himself first and THEN grabbed the pistol. And now I think it makes perfect sense that way. Duh.
Or...he wondered why another character left his pistol behind. To me, it was obvious he'd dropped it while climbing out a window...BUT it wasn't obvious to the reader. So I redid it and it segued into a neat little exchange between Daniel and Ace.
Who knows? Maybe this book will turn out to make sense after all.
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