Re-reading

There aren't many books that I will re-read. Stephen King--definitely. S.L. Viehl's StarDoc--of course! A certain mystery writer--nope. However I just started re-reading the Vampire Huntress series by L.A. Banks. I'm starting from the beginning.. Minion. I love the series...I've read 5 or 6 of the 8 currently available. I forgot which one I was up to, so I decided to start all over. And I am happy to say, that it is a whole new experience. I mean, I pretty much know what is going to happen, but now I can savor it. The first time I read the books I was thrown into a non-stop whirlwind of good vs. evil. I was so anxious to find out what was going to happen that I didn't slow down to savor the experience. That is the beauty of the 2nd reading. Especially if a bit of time has elapsed from the initial reading. I am also reading as research. Plotting, characterization. I've slowed down enough to take a look around this world I'm experiencing, and seeing the world as Ms. Banks wrote it.

I'm hoping this will help me to translate those movies in my mind onto paper. I often write without thinking...without drawing a complete picture. I leave things out, and I know in a first draft it shouldn't matter, but this old brain forgets....and I think I need to really watch that movie that's playing on the back of my eyelids,a nd absorbing it before i try to commit it to paper. I am working hard on my character--really just trying to get myself organized, and finding out what motivates Erika, Malcolm, Rohan, Serena and Kyle. (Five characters, two different novels, two different genres). I'm ping-ponging back and forth between the two, because they have been in my head for such a long time. I need to get them on paper and then decide what to do with them.

Eden's Promise was my Nano novel from six years ago. I never finished it, simply because I wrote myself into a corner. I've been thinking about this novel, and hope to get back to it later this year. I have some notes written down on that one as well. I don't think I am spreading myself too thin, as all three are different genres.

Ok. so I've been reading an unnamed mystery writer these past couple of weeks. The writer has a series of novels with very interesting characters. But I have noticed one disturbing thing, that probably wouldn't matter if I weren't a writer. Descriptive passages that are repeated from book to book. No, not infodumping the same backstoy....but literally word-for-word paragraphs that are repeated from book to book to book. I don't know about you, but that seems like lazy writing to me.