Arrant Nonsense

Right now, I'm reading "Path of Blood," by the lovely and effulgent difrancis. This is the third book in her "Path" trilogy, and it's some pretty heavy material. There's some very dark stuff going on here, and while the book is an excellent read and a fabulous conclusion (so far, anyway; and I'm sure I'm not going to be disappointed later)...but I decided I needed a break from death and torture and scary scary shit.

So I picked up "The Gun Seller," by Hugh Laurie.

Yes, that Hugh Laurie. House MD, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster Hugh Laurie. I don't remember how I found out that he'd written a novel, but I did, and it's been on my "list of things to read" for awhile now. I started it yesterday.

OMIGAWD, y'all.

It's nearly as exhausting to read as "Path of Blood," but for totally different reasons. First of all, it's hilarious. But the man does things with words and phrases and situations that are just...

Well, here. Have a sample.

...she took a cigarette from the packet, but didn't light it. She just played with it slowly, and then pointed a pair of grey eyes at me.

I say a pair. I mean her pair. She didn't get a pair of someone else's out from a drawer and point them at me. She pointed her own pair of huge, pale, grey, pale, huge eyes at me. The sort of eyes that can make a grown man talk gibberish to himself. Get a grip, for Christ's sake.

This story is insane. And hilarious. And is NOT the break I was looking for when I picked it up for a bit of light reading. But damn, I'm glad I picked it up. You can read the first page here. Is that a grabber, or what?

*sigh* Of course, I really shouldn't read stuff like this. I get depressed, because I compare myself to these writers and think "Man, I could never get words to do that for me. I suck." It makes me realize how much I suck at my chosen profession, and that spirals into realizing how much I suck at the profession I've had thrust upon me, and leads into a tornado of suck and blow and meh. That way lies badness.

So, I went poking through Ralan's in search of markets, because that's what I do when I'm, you know, not writing but should be. And I found a couple of contests I'd love to enter, both due in October.

Werewolves!

Post-apocalypse!

Both have word limits of 2,500, which you'd think I could bang out in a week or two. And I would.

IF I HAD PLOT.

I mean, I've written one werewolf story already, and that was just a blast. It's one of my favorites, in fact, so I'd love to do it again...if I had plot.

Which I don't.

And it's probably wrong that I'm intimidated by that one post-apocalypse story in the September 2007 issue of F&SF, John Langan's "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers," but I am because it's so fabulous and I really could never achieve something like that...even if I had plot.

Which I don't.

*ssssssiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhh*

It's like my writing font has dried up and blown away, y'all...

So much for finishing a story a month. I was hoping to up that to a story every two weeks, but at this rate I'll be lucky if I write anything more THIS YEAR.

Bah. *goes hunting inspiration*