Fixed Perspective

Thankee sai, Blaine, you speak true.

Things like that have been flashing in and out of my head like near-dead light bulbs as of late. Lines from that incredible series that I'm only five books into just keep coming up. I was actually happy that I listened to a lot of the second book on CD, it gave me a voice to read Roland's lines in. And those four words that ended a chapter late in the third novel will forever be a holy fucking shit moment for me; "It was a door."




I guess that reading has been my main hobby this year; I think I've read more books this summer than I have in my whole life, if you want the truth. Usually my take in is about four to five books a year, if that. If that. I would be hard-pressed to get through a 400 pager within a month, really. This year I had a good job that allowed me to get some solid reading time in when things got slow, so I just decided to read. Life wasn't going all that well, anyway, so any other world was exceptionally better than mine. I liked the way the stories were told, and it made me read things differently. More closely, I suppose. Something about the way Stephen King divulges that crucial piece of information in such a way that makes it our little secret instead of this big blaring announcement that something has happened in the story.


What I like most about reading is how personal it gets. Have you ever read a book and somehow felt that you were the only one who has read it? It's just like hearing a good band and then not telling anyone about it because you want that band to be "yours". Same thing with books. There are two reasons why I hardly tell people what I'm reading: the first is that I don't really think they care unless they ask, the second is that I secretly don't want them to oh-so-happen know the book, and then tell me about a part I haven't reached yet--or worse, a part I've passed but didn't pick up on. So for example this Dark Tower series, which is extremely in depth and complex but at the same time quite simple. If someone were to tell me something about what's at the top of the tower, I don't think I'll really care, but when I finally get to that part I'll still feel a little deflated. Wouldn't you? The same wouldn't be true for a movie. Ruin the ending, I don't care. Films are designed to entertain you all the way through, not just some twist ending. That's why Shamalyamanaman's are so crap. With books (and for the sake of content let's just stick with the Dark Tower series), it's more about the ride. It's more about those finite details that make the setting leap out at you. That's why I read. That personal picture we all make of something is what's most special about reading. To me, Roland the gunslinger looks and sounds a certain way. And no, it's not the audio book guy, though I do occasionally think of his raspy voice when I read. I know it's not that voice anymore. What I do know is that it's like no one else's version, and that's enough for me. Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Jake Chalmers and Oy will always be superstars of fiction in my mind, and what's funny about that is that I was doubtful they ever would be.

Since this is sort of a rebirth for this blog, I figure I should get out of the way a few plans I have in store for it. I'd rather not review stuff anymore, because I find more often than not that I'm merely repeating what I read on the other review sites. So I'm going to stick to the simple what's-on-my-mind kind of ideal, and hopefully spout off something interesting enough to read. No stories, either, but I think I'll still discuss what I'm writing because sometimes I figure things out for myself that way. Also, video games and stuff I learned on the internet (an idea I stole from TV writer Mark Verheiden's blog, which I still read every day).

Speaking of reading every day, I was recently disgusted by the changes to Digg.com and am now without an interesting news site. Sean suggests Reddit, which I'm lead to believe is the biggest rival to digg. Perhaps I'll try it out, but I'm open to suggestions on the subject. I used to spend hours on Digg over the course of the day, now... meh, I'd rather be doing something else. Like reading on the balcony over the sound of light traffic. Last week I read "Suffer the Little Children" by Stephen King. It took twenty minutes, maybe thirty with a few smoke breaks, but it was a nice refreshing horror read. It's from Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories. I just bought it in hardcover for 3 bucks from the Thrift Store, what a steal. I gave my paperback to Sean, I think.

If there's one thing I've learned this year about writing, it's how to properly start a sentence. Okay, maybe not properly, but the change I saw most was that my writing didn't read like it was coming out of a Morse code telegram writer anymore. While reading, I try to take note of different ways to begin a sentence, as I've found myself continually trapped in the whole " " sort of formula. And if I'm feeling gutsy, then I would switch John turned the car around when he saw the body on the shoulder of the road into something like When he saw the body on the shoulder of the road, John turned the car around. The same sentenced, just switched around. It makes it look different but it doesn't really do anything. Sometimes it even makes it sound worse. Take this passage from Stephen King's Wizard and Glass: He went back to his clean up operations. Susan stood back watching him for a while, feeling uneasy and out of sorts with herself. Now that the note had been successfully been passed, she felt an urge to ask Sheemie to give it back, to scratch out what she had written, and to promise to meet him. If only to see those steady blue eyes again, staring back at her. "Now that..." and "If only..." are the two I would like to point out, obviously. The first one in particular is in the present tense within a passive structured narrative. I like that he uses that because it gives that storyteller vibe. Like someone is actually saying this to you instead of making it sound all high and mighty. But starting a sentence with One of them backed away... or These latter cries were heard the next room over... or Blood--along with a few drips of beer--began to roll down his cheeks... are all without the normal subject-does-verb agreement, and all are from a single page of the book mentioned above. One page, man. I think it has a lot to do with imagining the sentence and what it is actually doing. For the blood sentence, I think I would be tempted to write how the person felt the blood pouring down his cheeks, but the problem would be that a) it might not be from his perspective, so how would the perspective-guy know he felt the blood, and b) it requires that to be a feeling felt by the character, which there really isn't time for in a bar fight (scene was in a bar fight) or any other situation where blood might be pouring down your cheeks. Instead, King simply made the blood the subject of the sentence, and to splif with the guy whose face it was on! Reader should know that anyway, right? Worked out nice, I'd say.


I'm stuffed from an amazing thanksgiving dinner, so I think I'll relax and watch a movie.

Until next time, happy reading!