Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world.
Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.
Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine.
It's hard to be wrongfully accused, but it's worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.
Roses! I swear you men have all your romance from the same worn book. Flowers are a good thing, a sweet thing to give a lady. But it is always roses, always red, and always perfect hothouse blooms when they can come by them.
There were two sets of double doors leading out of the antechamber, one marked STACKS and the other TOMES. Not knowing the difference between the two, I headed to the ones labeled STACKS. That was what I wanted. Stacks of books. Great heaps of books. Shelf after endless shelf of books.
On the other hand, winning awards is cool. Aside from the warm fuzzy, it creates publicity, and that helps spread the word about the book. Plus, this award was a plaque of some sort. I could have used that for all sorts of things. Obviously it would be useful for decorating the barren walls of my house and intimidating my enemies, but that's just for starters.
Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur Long-long in ledger all hope forgotten Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding Breathless her breast her high blood rising To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty.
I don't think people need to know much about me to understand the book, or to enjoy it. The book stands by itself. Over the last several years, my life has been all about writing these books, but the books aren't about my life.
You want to publish with a publisher because a publisher knows how to publish a book. And you don't. You really don't.
Humor is important for is pacing. If your whole book is just drama drama drama, it's going to wear down the reader.
The good thing about working on the books for 14 years before they hit the shelves is that I worked out most of the kinks long before they were published.
Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.
For people who don't know, the fundraiser works like this: people donate to Worldbuilders and they're automatically entered to win geeky swag in the lottery. We're just starting week two and we're already giving away more than $40,000 of books and games.
My thought is, if you're a book lover, you're going to enjoy winning a book even if it's not something you'd ordinarily pick up on your own. It's a chance to expand your horizons a little.
Each book needs a good beginning and a good ending. People get pissed off when you don't close things off properly at the end.
I was reluctant to talk about my kids on the blog. I kept telling myself, "People aren't coming here for stories about your kids. They want to hear about the upcoming books, writing advice, conventions..."
Some people are going to be impatient no matter what. If I wrote two books a year, someone out there would be pissed I wasn't writing three.
Whenever you write a character, you want to make them themselves, you want to make them unique. You don't want fifty characters in your book and they all pretty much act and think the same except they have different colored hair.
Here's the thing: Authors live or die by recommendations. [That's one of the reason I review so many books on Goodreads.] Giving books you love good reviews is one of the nicest things you can do for an author. What's more it's good for the entire community.
Generally my favorite remarks always come from my readers. I've had people say my books made them laugh, or cry, or that it frightened them late at night.
There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else.
We need to read good books, and for that to happen, we need to share good books.
Half a King is my favorite book by Joe Abercrombie so far, and that's saying something.
I know there's a lot of talk about self-publishing right now. Everyone's giddy with the possibilities. And I'll admit that it looks good on paper: sell your books directly and keep a bigger chunk of the profit for yourself. No rejection letters. No hassle with agents. Sounds good, right?
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