Monday 18 November 2013

I read this book…

So, I read this book the other day. I’m not going to tell you what one it is. But as far as I was concerned they were new, at least to me.
And even though that sentence made me interested, and so I looked said person up, I’m not actually going to tell you if they were new or just new to me.
 
Anyway, I read this book, and it wasn’t good—it wasn’t bad either. I didn’t have a thought on how I would have done it better. On the flip side I didn’t think of how I would have written it either. So it fell in the category of me never reading the book again, or ever being overly interested in what the author writes.
The writing style, it just, disappeared for me. And the book because like everyone else’s, only there wasn’t anything interesting to say.
 
And here I am bitching, when this isn’t about that author it’s about me.
 
I came to the realisation as yet again the author put in a back flash of what had just happened after a paragraph of what happened. It’s not that it was done back, I’ve done the flash back-story and it would have given me stomach ulcers if I didn’t take a breath and let it all go. but the authors deal was that, well, it was like: it took him six months to get everything set, and in that time he met Gem again, they said there part and walked away friends,” and the flashback to it happening.
Why couldn’t have said author just run with the flashback, but obviously, it’s how the author wanted the story told, and like I said, it didn’t not work, just… confused me a little.
 
Again, not the point at all, because that point if forcing outside of myself, and that’s just not right
 
So, I was into, like, the second flash back, and my eyes rolled before I kept on reading, and I thought… well, what if people think that about my work? I’m here all judging when I have done a book just like this one (okay, flashbacks were really the only common factor). What if people read that book and feel the same way. Ask themselves the same things?
 
Did that really need to be there?
Was that really important enough, and if it was, couldn’t we have seen it as a story line rather than a flashback?
 
Here’s the thing, I have massive doubts about this book. I have them because I’ve never been a fan of flashbacks, I think they can be done quite well, but most of the time they flop. It’s why the book I mentioned about hit me the wrong way, because I’m not a fan of it (okay, there were a few other factors, but it’s not about that book).
 
I have the added bonus of being about to shut down my doubts a little, especially with that book, mostly because my flashbacks are actual flashbacks, there isn’t actually a way of putting them in there here and now, where the authors were… well, they were only flashbacks because the author obviously liked it that way.
 
But my books aren’t the point.
The point is, I was there, reading this book and my thoughts kept circling on how they were, what was bad about the book. Why I wasn’t connecting with the writing style. Why I was over the book writing the first three chapters.
 
It’s scary, and I got a far way into the book before I realised what it was I was doing. How I was reading this book, just because the author was new to me.
 
It was odd, too, once I realised what I was doing, it hit me. People would be doing the exact same thing to me soon. They were going to get their hands on my work and they were going to see it in that same light. Like they were looking at them in a way that’s not how they normally read books.
 
Okay, breath Bronwyn, it’s getting a little dramatic.
I wasn’t really looking at it any different then what I would read anyone new. I saw the things I didn’t like, and unfortunately, there was quite a few, or I wouldn’t have been able to deal with that one thing. But I couldn’t. And because I couldn’t I saw everything that annoyed me.
That was all.
Plain and simple.
 
But yeah, that’s about to happen to me. And I have this pain in my chest as I breath deep, that has nothing to do with my damaged lungs and everything to do with the fact that I’m about to be put out there. In the world. Where everyone is going to see me. And there going to read me. And there going to judge me. and if I’m good I’ll get all types of backlash, if I’m bad I’m going to sink into the black at the bottom of a lagoon.
 
It’s fucking scary, and it’s exciting and I’m… I’m a bundle of nervous energy that doesn’t know what it wants to do.
I need to write. I need to sleep. I need. I need. I need.
 
Well, actually right this second I need to go shower and shave because in a few hours, I’m going swimming and its cold outside (summer in Aus, at the moment means, 30oC one week 16oC two weeks after). And it’s going to be toxic as hell (you know like indoor pools are known for) and I need the moisturiser to sink in and fix as much damage as they can before my legs get dunk into that water.
 
So that’s for the time and letting me whinge.