Mired in the Muck

I'm stuck.  Well, kinda ... not really... but sort of yes.  I've been trudging through this same chapter for a couple days now and I think it's fate laughing at me because I said that the book was flowing so easily.  I've got several ideas fluttering around in my head and nothing wants to settle.  Do I destroy the city now or push it to earlier in the book?  Do I let them have sex in the garden or not?  Do I let them get caught by the garden owner or her brother?

This chapter doesn't want to settle itself.  I think I just need to buckle down, write it, and not worry about everything else until I move on to the next chapter.

In my spare time, I've found that my reading has enjoyed a significant shift in genres.  When I was working on the two short stories for the Asylum Tales, I was heavily reading paranormal romances.  They tend to be light and funny with happy endings and a nice touch of magic.  I want the Asylum Tales to remain light so I keep my reading light.  However, I recently picked up a series that I started reading when I was in high school.

When in junior high, I read a lot of random things.  There was a little young adult, but not much that seemed to interest me.  I was picking up romance novels that I really had no business reading, but they were just so good.  It wasn't until I was a freshman that a friend handed me my first fantasy novel.  Sadly, I don't remember which is was, but I DEVOURED it.  I didn't know you could do any of the things that I read in a book.  I knew about magic and dragons, but that was the realm of Disney magic, not books.

That same friend soon handed me a wonderful book by Raymond E. Feist called Magician: Apprentice, and I was in heaven.  It was an amazing world where wondrous things were happening to people that I loved.  It was here that I understood the addiction of the series, where you are able to follow characters over several books.  I adored Pug and Tomas, but probably like most girls who read the series, I fell in love with Arutha.  Feist taught me what it meant to create a good character.  Strong or weak, they were all doubting, fallible, but born with a strong sense of duty and honor whether its to family, friend, or country.

My freshman year, I read every book that Raymond Feist had published.  And when I ran out of his books, I started writing my own fantasy series.  Before finishing high school, I had completed the first book and while in college, I wrote roughly half of the second book.  I still have the map I made and the mound of notes I had made.  I don't think I will ever seek to get the series published.  The heart and plot of the story are solid, but the writing is very weak.  I will finish it for myself, though.

In the meantime, I've jumped back into the books Feist set on the mythical world of Midkemia.  I have a large pile that I've never read and I can't wait to get to them.  But for now, I am content to wander through books I haven't picked up in nearly two decades.  I still cried at the scene I first cried at when I was a teenager and other parts made me sad that I don't recall crying over.  It never ceases to amaze me the power of the written word and the emotions that those collection of words evoke.