Reading, Writing, No Arithmetic

So, I saw a review of Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and I acquired a copy at ye olde local Borders. It took me a couple of days to actually start reading the book because the first chapter made me want to carry the book back to the store and return it.

The official description of the book is thus:

Accountant Katie Kramer is a quintessential good girl – working hard, recycling diligently, all the while trying to ignore the feeling that she doesn’t fit in anywhere. That’s all she wants. Well, that – and amazing sex, and the kind of daredevil escapade she can look back on when she’s crunching numbers in a dusty cubicle. Which explains why she just took a job in Wishful, California, working for Wilder Adventures and Expeditions. Waking up to find a magnificently built stranger towering over her bed – that part defies explanation…After wandering the planet for months following a life-changing accident, Cameron Wilder has come back to the only home he knows. Under other circumstances, he might be thrilled to find a gorgeous woman sleeping in his cabin, but now, while he’ll risk his body taking clients on adrenaline-drenched excursions, his heart is off limits. Still, Katie’s killer smile triggers something deep in his gut…among other places. Showing her how exhilarating it can be to stop balancing her life as if it was a check book is the biggest rush he’s ever felt – and an adventure Katie’s wishing would never end…

…okay, then. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of the matter. Katie is traumatized by an accident where she was the only survivor of a collapsed bridge. She thinks that living life to its fullest is going to be her only chance of making a difference, so she’s doing all this crazy stuff she’s never done before and “overcoming” and “dealing with” her panic and so on. Cam is also dealing with accident fallout, except his accident was the result of his own stupidity and not paying fucking attention when careening down a fucking snow-covered cliff.

(Can you tell I don’t connect with these characters at all?)

The story is well and good enough (boy meets girl, boy screws girl, they fight, etc., get together in the end…), the grammatics and composition are good enough, but I just could not get into the story. And, then at the end, Katie walks into her apartment to find Cam naked in her bed.

Am I supposed to believe that she wouldn’t be calling the cops and have him frisked for her missing keys? Because, really, that’s just… no. Do not want. It’s not romantic at all to have your privacy invaded by someone — god forbid there’s an explanation in the story of how he got into the bed in the first place.

All in all: okay book, not my cuppa, and crazy!stalker!Cam! needs to go away before he starts to sparkle like Edward Cullen. (Eeeeew.)

I’ve been writing for a long time. That being said, making effective use of my available spare time isn’t my strong suit. A lot of times, I feel like I’m too tired to properly articulate my thoughts, or that there’s a giant jumble of words that refuse to resolve into something more concrete. I’m not a formula writer, and most of the time, I’m not a pre-plotter; there are certain plot points that make themselves known, but the road connecting the points is a mystery. That’s what makes me who I am as a writer: those unknown spaces that suddenly connect by a stray sentence or paragraph, making everything a giant circle of “well, duh! why didn’t I think of that before? I really must be stupid today!”

However, again, there are just those days when the words refuse to come. All too often lately, those days outnumber the days when I can think clearly enough to bring life to the images dancing around my head.

When I go on vacation in a week, it’s my intention to take Englebert and Ernie (my laptop and flash drive) with me and force myself to write rather than watching History International and Nicktoons for the duration. It might make me crazy, but there’s no excuse for laziness on my part when I don’t have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to go to work.

(I should also buy a bag of Jelly Bellys while I’m away. They seem to help with the random channeling of verbosity.)

Welcome (back) to striped-socks.net! Those of you who were here before remember a much different fandom-oriented website, but now it’s Becky’s personal/professional crypt.

I will be posting about my in-progress and completed stories here, and updates as to publishing status/non-status (as the case may be). Updates might be few in far between. In the meanwhile, feel free to go hang out at popculturepolitics.com.

Cya!