Matthew Woodring Stover's Blog, page 5

It's done. More or less.

A bit of tidying to do–a page here and there, for clarity–and it goes in on Monday.

To paraphrase Nabokov, one does not so much finish a Caine novel as one abandons it in despair.

BLADE OF TYSHALLE was very different from HEROES DIE, and CAINE BLACK KNIFE isn't much like either of them. This one too. Or maybe more so.

Now I'm tired.

Then on Tuesday, I'll start thinking about what to do with the rest of my career . . .

From Joshua:

Club Caine is meeting this Friday at the usual location, Panera Bread in Schaumburg on Golf Road. We'll be discussing Blade of Tyshalle chapters 6 through 9 starting at 645. I hope your foot/toe is healing well. Thanks!

The toe is basically healed, thanks. Working my way slowly back into running . . . working like a madman to finish this book.

Without comment except that . . .

To quote a person wiser than myself . . .

"This is how liberty dies. With cheats and applause."

Uh, wait. That should be "cheers and applause."

Right?

Seriously. Right?

Before I forget again: my Magic: the Gathering tie-in, Test of Metal, went on sale yesterday.

It's already received a Let's Log Into Amazon.com For the First Time Just to Trash This Novel review, which means it must be pretty good.

And someone of our acquaintance has already spanked the reviewer for it . . .

TARP Bailout to Cost Less Than Once Anticipated.

Now just wait for everyone to start shouting about the Economic Genius of the W Administration . . .

This showed up on my radar courtesy of Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and notorious liberal pit bull.

He describes it as the best summary of Ayn Rand's influence he's ever come across, and I have to not only agree, but feel compelled to spread it throughout all geekdom.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes...

Hey.

I'm not dead, just up to my eyeballs in Caine's carnival of whipass.

There are a lot of comments I haven't responded to — not to mention fifteen or twenty emails — and I apologize for the inattention.

As many of you will recall, writing Caine consumes all available brainpower, and I've been hitting it extra hard, because my available brainpower ain't what it used to be, and I wanted to deliver this book three months ago.

I'll be my usual congenially cranky self after I'm done.

Till then . ...

I went to the orthopedist yesterday. He looks over the toe, the stitches, the alignment, whatever. Everything is as perfect as can be reasonably expected: no infection, joint's tight, tendons seem to work.

Then he says. "Um . . . what else do you do for fun?"

"Else?"

"Other than jiu jitsu."

"I run."

"Other than running."

"I trail-walk my dog."

He says, "Hmm. Hm. Well, I suppose you can ride a stationary bike . . ."

The upshot: three months. I can start running again in mid-fucking-November. Maybe.

So ...

So . . .

Finally wore a hole in the bottom of my Vibram 5Fingers Sprints, so I have replaced them with 5Fingers KSO's, which not only Keep Shit Out, but have 3mm soles as compared to 1.3mm for the Sprints. Something like that.

Anyway, they're fully as awesome. They give a little more stone-defense than the Sprints, which make them comfortable to run even on some of the semi-groomed gravel trails at our local college's cross-country course.

I've been having a bit less success with the Gracie...

By request, from Guy.

Stover's Rule of Writing #5: Exposition

First, a reminder of something that should be obvious but sometimes isn't:

Exposition is the delivery of information to the reader. Period.

So is every other element of writing.

Deliver information is the only thing your language on the page does. The only thing it can do. Are you with me? The most in-your-face action-packed-thrillaminnit scene is, at its core, exposition . . . it's just a bit more vivid than the narrative elements we u...