Sometimes I love being able to speed read...

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Like the title says, and what a lot of people don't know, is that I have a slight knack for speed reading. I'm not great at it and can't apply a photographic memory to what I've read like some people can, but I can speed through pages of a book really fast if the story interests me enough.

I do admit I'm a little rusty as I haven't really read anything of any real substance that caught my interest in quite a while. I started reading a couple different books as a type of research so that I can write mine as well as possible. I had heard from my friend Jason that my story reminded me of the type of books M.R. Sellars writes so I found an excerpt of a few of his chapters online to see for myself. I've only read the first two chapters of Harm None, but I can really see what Jason was talking about. (Due to a printing mishap while borrowing their laptop, Jason and Joel have read more of the early ideas for my book than even Erich! Although I have verbally told Erich everything it's about, especially when I've been stuck on how to write any of it) I hope to continue reading Mr. Sellars books and see just how similar he writing styles and genre are. The main thing that interests me is that his books are written from the first-person perspective of a man who works with the police to solve not-so-normal crimes; my story is from the first-person perspective of a female detective who receives non-traditional assistance from various dieties to help solve her cases and how this "gift" affects her life. Should be interesting the type of insight I get from reading these books.

But now the main part of this blog entry, no I haven't been speed-reading M.R. Sellars books (yet!) but only because I got caught up in a new series by Stephenie Meyer - the Twilight series.

To say that I enjoyed reading this series is an understatement, I managed to read all 4 of her novels in 1 week. If you know my current schedule of taking care of my nearing toddler everyday, you'd see how shocking this is, even to me. It's been years since I've read this fast, I really didn't think it was possible anymore from lack of practice. I'd liken it to a marathon runner winning the Boston Marathon after hardly even jogging for 5 years, crazy, I know! Something in the story caught my attention and I was off. Somehow, I seemed to get almost everything I would normally get done each day finished too. Although I will admit to staying up a couple extra hours on a coupe of nights because bedtime came at such an inconvenient point in the plot.

After reading such a well-written series I am just dying to get to work on my book. Reading Ms. Meyer's books really gave me an excellent perspective on how to write a love story that includes the typical love triangle from the woman in the middle's perspective. Even as I write this blog entry I can see the tone that I want to use in order to bring this world into existance.

Then, when I didn't think I could be inspired enough by these books, I checked out the authors webpage and read the story behind the first book...Wow! The fact that her book was based on characters from a dream is just so familiar. While I came up with a basic one paragraph idea for my story on a long car ride while visiting my in-laws, the entire story came to life in my dreams (...thanks to my writing gremlin and my initial lack of motivation to write up the original couple ideas that he gave me...) The author website is: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com

Bah, now the hard part... I am feeling pulled to start writing so many parts of the story at once. I'll have to find a good way to get all of this creative energy typed up and saved while it's so strong.

I guess what I'm saying is that by some miracle this book comes out well and by another miracle were to get published... I have an author I have to thank somewhere in the acknowledgments. Also if you like a good book, or 4, I'd definitely suggest the Twilight series to just about anyone.