In my book, cart comes before horse. (My book is a dictionary.)

I’m finding that fiction series don’t just make for fun summer reading, they really make me feel like working on my novel…so as to lay the groundwork for a couple dozen sequels…

write what you’d like to read

Like the advice says, I would like to write the kind of novel I’d like to read.  Okay, but I like reading lots and lots and lots of kinds of novels.  I happen to have quite a few of those various kinds of reads in progress right now.  So I guess what I’d really like is to bring to the novel I write none of the scattershot attention with which I read novels.  Oh, and (while I’m at it) to write a novel that *you* (plural) would like to read.

I can do better

• No real story progress to report.  It’s been a reading week, not a writing one.  But it’s not supposed to be either/or.  I can do better.
• A few days ago I went to my favorite semiannual book sale (all-the-books-you-can-fit-in-a-grocery-bag-for-$2+tax).  I stopped shopping once I had about all the books I could carry a few blocks, but if I go back and improve my paperback/hardcover ratio and really fill that bag…oh yes, I can do better.
• I’ve had “friends” who have been known to use the word “clutter” as a synonym for books.  I can do better.

judging book covers by their victims

I didn’t read nearly enough fantasy and science fiction back when I was impressionable and consequently have no appreciation whatsoever for these genres’ most embarrassing book covers. I went for the Nancy Drews and Agatha Christies instead. So now I can’t help but feel kindly disposed to cheesy paintings of intrepid girl detectives who’ve been chloroformed and imprisoned in cellars, or cheery cartoon drawings of knives protruding from the backs of corpses in picturesque British villages — even if that isn’t what I’m interested in reading. But so many of the books I would be interested in have been chloroformed and imprisoned in the most villainous SF covers. Will our heroine find them in time?