When do you walk away?
Okay, no real time for big blogging, so instead I'll pose a question that my agent, Kristin Nelson, recently posed on her blog.
Do you finish every book you start, even if it's slow/boring/bad/predictable/ and/or unenjoyable?
Personally, I don't finish every book I start--far from it, in fact. Usually, books I read fall into the following categories:
A) books I read in one sitting and/or multiple times (Examples: Amazing Grace, Girls' Poker Night, Motherless Brooklyn).
B) books I read and thoroughly enjoy. I may put them down, but I always pick them back up again and look forward to the author's next work.
C) books I start but put down to unload the dishwasher, go to bed, watch Veronica Mars--you know, the essentials--and then never think about (and thus never pick up) again. (Unless I'm on an airplane and then I might finish unless the flight is over before the book is.)
D) books that I don't get/don't enjoy/ and mostly don't see what the fuss is about. This category is reserved for books that have won awards or gotten great reviews or something that makes me keep reading in search of the laughs that Kirkus promised when they called the book "hilarious."
E) books that annoy me so much I live with the anger that I wasted any time or money on them and have no intention of wasting any more. I don't care what the reviewers said; I don't care how many author blurbs the book got; I JUST DON'T CARE! (Rule of thumb: if you'd rather read the American Way magazine on the plane than finish the book you've paid sixteen bucks for, it's an E!)
From a statistical standpoint, these probably follow a pretty standard deviation, with the bulk of books I try ending up as C's, with fewer B's and D's, and A's and E's being the rarest of all.
So, that's me.
Now, I've got to get back to work on what I hope will be somebody's 'A'.
Please discuss...
Ally
edited to add:
ps....I wish I could give examples of my Bs through my Es (especially some E's because I've got some doozies), but I can't because publishing is a very small world, and that would be stupid.
And also mean.
And if I were self-googling (yeah, like that's a hypothetical), and I found that someone had listed one of MY books as an E then I would cry and cry and probably give up on personal hygiene altogether.
So, no. I won't be giving examples.
pps...yes, I am trying to bring back the word "doozie." How do you think it's going?
Do you finish every book you start, even if it's slow/boring/bad/predictable/ and/or unenjoyable?
Personally, I don't finish every book I start--far from it, in fact. Usually, books I read fall into the following categories:
A) books I read in one sitting and/or multiple times (Examples: Amazing Grace, Girls' Poker Night, Motherless Brooklyn).
B) books I read and thoroughly enjoy. I may put them down, but I always pick them back up again and look forward to the author's next work.
C) books I start but put down to unload the dishwasher, go to bed, watch Veronica Mars--you know, the essentials--and then never think about (and thus never pick up) again. (Unless I'm on an airplane and then I might finish unless the flight is over before the book is.)
D) books that I don't get/don't enjoy/ and mostly don't see what the fuss is about. This category is reserved for books that have won awards or gotten great reviews or something that makes me keep reading in search of the laughs that Kirkus promised when they called the book "hilarious."
E) books that annoy me so much I live with the anger that I wasted any time or money on them and have no intention of wasting any more. I don't care what the reviewers said; I don't care how many author blurbs the book got; I JUST DON'T CARE! (Rule of thumb: if you'd rather read the American Way magazine on the plane than finish the book you've paid sixteen bucks for, it's an E!)
From a statistical standpoint, these probably follow a pretty standard deviation, with the bulk of books I try ending up as C's, with fewer B's and D's, and A's and E's being the rarest of all.
So, that's me.
Now, I've got to get back to work on what I hope will be somebody's 'A'.
Please discuss...
Ally
edited to add:
ps....I wish I could give examples of my Bs through my Es (especially some E's because I've got some doozies), but I can't because publishing is a very small world, and that would be stupid.
And also mean.
And if I were self-googling (yeah, like that's a hypothetical), and I found that someone had listed one of MY books as an E then I would cry and cry and probably give up on personal hygiene altogether.
So, no. I won't be giving examples.
pps...yes, I am trying to bring back the word "doozie." How do you think it's going?
posted by Ally Carter at Tuesday, September 05, 2006
3 Comments:
Usually, I do finish books I start. But there was one a few weeks ago that had been recommended that I could not get into at all. I didn't like the characters. And even though it was supposed to be something of an action/adventure novel, it was BORING. I decided I had better things to read than that, so I did. :)
I'm really impatient with books. If it doesn't grab me in the first two pages, I put it down. The way I look at it, there are so many fantastic books out there that I haven't read yet, why waste time on one I'm not enjoying? So I leave it, and move on to something I hope I'm going to love.
Sounds harsh, but it means that when I write I'm writing for the most demanding audience in the world - myself.
Love the blog, by the way.
I used to pride myself on always finishing a book. Then three years ago I picked up a book that I was unable to get beyond page 5. Since then I've spiraled into un-read book hell and have started, but not yet finished at least two or three other books.
Now, with even less time to read than normal I'm very selfish with what I choose to read. So many of my books fall into your A category - finishing in one read.
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