All I Want for Christmas...is more time to read!

Dunno if I like the graphic or the text better in this image!

More than once I've wondered if being the headmaster of a boys' prep school wouldn't be about the best job ever...or, mebbe, better still, being the underutilized librarian at said school! Mmm...books and learning...learning and books, yum!

Are you someone who loves to look around you and see rows or heaps and piles of books? Or, do you buy and read then pass along or resell? Me, I'm by nature acquisitive (and inquisitive!) but am learning to simplify, unacquire, and down-size. Happily, both my wife and I have always been library people...sadly, I tend to salivate to excess in bookstores or libraries! So many books, so little time!

There are some books that just MUST be acquired, read, and reread. Lewis and Tolkien, Scripture, and Robert Frost are life-long keepers for me. Howzabout you?

Fantasy? Fantastic!

Fantasy.

What do you think of when you read that word?

Faeries? (of the classical sort?

...or, Tinkerbelle?

Hobbits, orcs, ents?

Talking carnivorous plants (Little Shop of Horrors)?

Space aliens who are thwarted only when reluctant heroes ally themselves with the village idiot (Dreamcatcher, S. King)?

My mind goes straight-way to Tolkien and CSLewis. Okay, shows my age, I know. Madeleine l'Engle just wasn't that popular when I was in those formative years as a reader. The greats of sci-fi were popular, so I read lotsa Asimov, Pohl, Bradbury...but, where does sci-fi stop and fantasy begin? I didn't catch up with Tolkien and Lewis' fantasies until college, courtesy of a close friend who became even closer over the yrs (she made a darn fine mother of our children...and she and I still read a lotta the same stuff together!)

Last month, I read: a mystery, a poetry collection, a romance, 2 biographies/memoires, 2 literary novels, a non-fiction (THE YR 1000: history of England), and two thrillers. In my mind, the wider or more old-fashioned definition of fantasy embraces almost all of these works--they are the works of the writers' imaginations--even the non-fiction still requires inventiveness and aptitude with phrases and creative ways of presenting history that made it that book a fun, lively read--so fun, I read several ppghs aloud while Elizabeth (pretended to?) listened as she cooked.

Do you like to stick with just one genre of reading? What invites you to try something different? I need to know these answers, as a writer and marketer of my works...I'd deeply apprec yr comments.

Oh, and that bridges to another critical query--what moves you when buying books as gifts...but, more on that for another day.

Again, pls take a sec to comment, below. Thnx, D.

The Story Behind the Story, part 3: FROM IDEA TO STORY.

Idea--duly noted and written down.

Nudge--rib cage elbowed yet again, urging the body into action.

And the idea became flesh and dwelt among us...

How do I take an idea, a fleeting phantasm, and dress it in skin and sinew, bones and brains, and give it vibrancy and voice?

Some authors use outlines for the plot:
"Here's the conflict...now, how to heighten it? How to intensify it into a crisis? What does the crisis need in order to resolve it? How will the characters act and interact?"

...and, they create many-page biographies for their main characters:
"Now, this is where this character was born, what parents were like? Personal likes and dislikes? How do they dress, what do they eat, where work, how play and with whom? Relationships? Tastes in food, drink, entertainment, autos? Townie or city or rural?"

Other authors, whose approach to writing resonates with me, suggest, "Take a strong character. Throw them into a situation. Let's see how they cope and what they do to get out of it." As Stephen King says, "I'm the first reader of my stories. I have no idea of what's coming next, and I can hardly wait to see how it'll work out!" [A decent paraphrase, not quite verbatim, from ON WRITING: FOR LOVE OF THE CRAFT.]

So, I took the idea of dogs attending the Nativity. Now, what would make dogs more interesting than they already are? Howzabout these dogs having a perfect understanding of human language? And the ability to talk to other beasts? Sure, talking animals, not the first time that's been done? But, it's still fun, huh? Narnia and Middle Earth don't have a monopoly on the notion--altho I don't expect to see it done better than Lewis and Tolkien!

What do dogs do? Eat, play, interact with humans...duh. Just because they can understand human speech, they're still dogs and they gotta act like dogs or else they have no integrity, they become something less believable if they don't chase their tails, right? What dog travels from point A to point B directly? Of course not, they travel thru X, M, T, and U whilst sniffing, wagging, and panting, and then pause only to go racing in yet another direction. Just because my dogs add on dialog such as, "Hey, lookit over here! C'mon...this smells great!" doesn't take away from their intrinsic dogginess...in fact, come to think of it, I hope it actually adds to their native canine cool!

That's a little peek under the creative hood of story writing and how it works for me. Woof!