These are a few of my favorite things...
Did I ever tell you I LOVE Dean Koontz? I love Stephen King too. They are some of my favorite things.
I know I write romance, but when I began writing 2 and a half years ago, I didn't know romance authors by name, per se. I think the only one's I was really familiar with were Sandra Hill and Linda Howard. I wasn't a rabid fan, I was an avid reader of them, though. Sandra is hilarious and Linda is the Queen of sex and mystery.
I didn't follow their careers and wait for books to come out with impatience, I just bought them if I saw them. When I was a housewife (Oh, the days...LOL), I would read and read during the summer at our pool and mostly it was romance. If something caught my eye, I'd buy it -- devour it and never think to write the name of the romance author down so I might look for more books by them.
in fact, when I wrote my first book, it had nothing to do with a burning desire to write. I just did it. Much like I jump into most new experiences. With both feet, eyes wide shut. BAM. I'm in the deep end and doggy paddling. That's much what happened to me when I wrote Shut Up and Drive.
I saw a Yoplait yogurt commercial, the one where the parents are role playing and I got an idea. BAM--in the deep end I jump. I sent it to a pub with no notions of making gazoodles of money or even being pubbed. I had no intention of making it comedic, I was just writing what I am in real life. A smart ass. I don't even know that I condsidered I'd be writing anything else ever again. I'd never wanted to be a writer. It wasn't something I'd spent years cultivating (and maybe that's obvious if you read my fluff--snort). It wasn't something I'd studied or chased after. It just happened. No one talks to me in my head. I don't get ideas while I'm relieving myself and write them on toilet paper with my eyeliner (sacriledge, I say. LOL). I don't set an extra place at the table for my current characters so we can get to know one another. Maybe that makes me mediocre, but there it is. All I know is this, I kinda gotta do it. So I do. And as a result, here I am.
Wow -- who knew? LMAO I still cock my head to the left and go, "Who?" when someone says a name that's hugely popular in romance, but I fail to recognize. I read to read--to escape and it doesn't have to be romance novels. I know next to nothing about these big names and backlists, bodies of work, agents, publishing houses ect. Maybe that's what keeps me motivated? I'm big name dumb and I don't think I ever wanna get big name bright. If I hear numbers in greenback, connections that are supposedly valuable, bestseller lists ect, I'll be too obsessed trying to focus on bringing my stats up and forget about why I do this. Hell, I've had conversations with romance writers that I had no clue were industry leaders. I just like to hang out and making friends. If that makes me non-ambitious, then so be it. I'm okay with mediocre sycophant-ism. LOLLOLLOLLOL
Anyway, that brings me to Dean Koontz. I discovered him back in the mid ninties and he WAS someone I'd wait with great anticipation to put out a new release. I love him as much as I love Stephen King.
I have to wonder what it's like to live in their heads. I thought I was scary, but I'm funny scary, not evil scary. Dean and Stephen have diabolical, twisted minds and imaginations that allow them to depict that evil with startling clarity. I'd love to do a therapy session with them. Man, we'd have to share the Prozac after our ink blot tests, eh? LOL
I'm in the grocery store yesterday and I see my old friend Dean has a book. I've missed many since I began writing because I just don't have the time I once did. I could spend a week just lying around catching up on reading his evilness and do absolutely nothing else.
For some crazy reason, I'm ahead of my writing schedule and I decided, I'd sit outside by the pool (that now leaks--don't even ask) on a crisp afternoon and drench myself in the maniacal freakiness that is Dean.
Good gravy, he wigs me out. Now that I know what goes into plotting, timing (which isn't only everything in comedy alone), devising, hatching, teasing a reader -- I'm ever in awe. He knows just how to give you a tidbit of info, string it along just enough to keep you drooling, snips the string, let's you freefall, then drops a bomb, then throws you a rope and hauls you back over the coals again.
To say this man is a master plotter is to say J-Lo will marry some poor, unsuspecting Latin lethario again. Yeah, there are more Latin hotties to be snared out there. I swear if she touches Ricki Martin, I'll implode. LOL
So, I'm reading Life Expectancy. It's about a guy named Jimmy who's a baker in a long line of bakers. Pastry chef, to be precise and on the eve of his birth, his dying grandfather, lying in a hospital bed, spews some dates, well into the future that he prophesizes in his spooky, dying state, will be bad. Very bad indeed. Jimmy's father, Rudy writes them down and waits with his family in fear for these five, life altering dates to arrive. Jimmy's known about them all of his life and when the first one hits, well, let's just say, it's pretty damned eerie.
I am glued to this damn book! Koontz takes a very ordinary man with a profession that is fairly different, but still not uncommon and turns him into this like legend. An unsuspecting hero, but he makes it seem as though Jimmy is surviving very common mishaps, when in reality, they're are decidedly uncommon and bone chilling.
He doesn't spend much time hemming and hawing with Jimmy bemoaning his fate either. You go into the book with Jimmy knowing full well he's headed for deep do-do, but facing it in a very ordinary way. In a way you can almost relate to, if it weren't so implausible.
He also hits it head on with some humor and I gotta dig that.
However, I found a hole. A plot hole that has no explanation and I might have missed if I didn't write books myself now. I don't much care about it because I like the roller coaster ride of fucked-up-ed-ness, but a hole nontheless. Kinda big too and I'm DYING to ask him about it.
Ya think Dean would have lunch with me so we might discuss this hole? I'm almost done with the book and still, no explanation. Can you see my agent calling his? Dakota Cassidy, small time e-book writer, erotic in nature, smart ass personified, has a BIG question for you, Dean. Ya up for some turkey clubs and a chat by her leaky pool? LOLLOL.
Dean is one of my favorite things. I think after yesterday he's more of a favorite than even the VS Xmas catalogue.
That alone, speaks VOLUMES :)
Dakota :)
I know I write romance, but when I began writing 2 and a half years ago, I didn't know romance authors by name, per se. I think the only one's I was really familiar with were Sandra Hill and Linda Howard. I wasn't a rabid fan, I was an avid reader of them, though. Sandra is hilarious and Linda is the Queen of sex and mystery.
I didn't follow their careers and wait for books to come out with impatience, I just bought them if I saw them. When I was a housewife (Oh, the days...LOL), I would read and read during the summer at our pool and mostly it was romance. If something caught my eye, I'd buy it -- devour it and never think to write the name of the romance author down so I might look for more books by them.
in fact, when I wrote my first book, it had nothing to do with a burning desire to write. I just did it. Much like I jump into most new experiences. With both feet, eyes wide shut. BAM. I'm in the deep end and doggy paddling. That's much what happened to me when I wrote Shut Up and Drive.
I saw a Yoplait yogurt commercial, the one where the parents are role playing and I got an idea. BAM--in the deep end I jump. I sent it to a pub with no notions of making gazoodles of money or even being pubbed. I had no intention of making it comedic, I was just writing what I am in real life. A smart ass. I don't even know that I condsidered I'd be writing anything else ever again. I'd never wanted to be a writer. It wasn't something I'd spent years cultivating (and maybe that's obvious if you read my fluff--snort). It wasn't something I'd studied or chased after. It just happened. No one talks to me in my head. I don't get ideas while I'm relieving myself and write them on toilet paper with my eyeliner (sacriledge, I say. LOL). I don't set an extra place at the table for my current characters so we can get to know one another. Maybe that makes me mediocre, but there it is. All I know is this, I kinda gotta do it. So I do. And as a result, here I am.
Wow -- who knew? LMAO I still cock my head to the left and go, "Who?" when someone says a name that's hugely popular in romance, but I fail to recognize. I read to read--to escape and it doesn't have to be romance novels. I know next to nothing about these big names and backlists, bodies of work, agents, publishing houses ect. Maybe that's what keeps me motivated? I'm big name dumb and I don't think I ever wanna get big name bright. If I hear numbers in greenback, connections that are supposedly valuable, bestseller lists ect, I'll be too obsessed trying to focus on bringing my stats up and forget about why I do this. Hell, I've had conversations with romance writers that I had no clue were industry leaders. I just like to hang out and making friends. If that makes me non-ambitious, then so be it. I'm okay with mediocre sycophant-ism. LOLLOLLOLLOL
Anyway, that brings me to Dean Koontz. I discovered him back in the mid ninties and he WAS someone I'd wait with great anticipation to put out a new release. I love him as much as I love Stephen King.
I have to wonder what it's like to live in their heads. I thought I was scary, but I'm funny scary, not evil scary. Dean and Stephen have diabolical, twisted minds and imaginations that allow them to depict that evil with startling clarity. I'd love to do a therapy session with them. Man, we'd have to share the Prozac after our ink blot tests, eh? LOL
I'm in the grocery store yesterday and I see my old friend Dean has a book. I've missed many since I began writing because I just don't have the time I once did. I could spend a week just lying around catching up on reading his evilness and do absolutely nothing else.
For some crazy reason, I'm ahead of my writing schedule and I decided, I'd sit outside by the pool (that now leaks--don't even ask) on a crisp afternoon and drench myself in the maniacal freakiness that is Dean.
Good gravy, he wigs me out. Now that I know what goes into plotting, timing (which isn't only everything in comedy alone), devising, hatching, teasing a reader -- I'm ever in awe. He knows just how to give you a tidbit of info, string it along just enough to keep you drooling, snips the string, let's you freefall, then drops a bomb, then throws you a rope and hauls you back over the coals again.
To say this man is a master plotter is to say J-Lo will marry some poor, unsuspecting Latin lethario again. Yeah, there are more Latin hotties to be snared out there. I swear if she touches Ricki Martin, I'll implode. LOL
So, I'm reading Life Expectancy. It's about a guy named Jimmy who's a baker in a long line of bakers. Pastry chef, to be precise and on the eve of his birth, his dying grandfather, lying in a hospital bed, spews some dates, well into the future that he prophesizes in his spooky, dying state, will be bad. Very bad indeed. Jimmy's father, Rudy writes them down and waits with his family in fear for these five, life altering dates to arrive. Jimmy's known about them all of his life and when the first one hits, well, let's just say, it's pretty damned eerie.
I am glued to this damn book! Koontz takes a very ordinary man with a profession that is fairly different, but still not uncommon and turns him into this like legend. An unsuspecting hero, but he makes it seem as though Jimmy is surviving very common mishaps, when in reality, they're are decidedly uncommon and bone chilling.
He doesn't spend much time hemming and hawing with Jimmy bemoaning his fate either. You go into the book with Jimmy knowing full well he's headed for deep do-do, but facing it in a very ordinary way. In a way you can almost relate to, if it weren't so implausible.
He also hits it head on with some humor and I gotta dig that.
However, I found a hole. A plot hole that has no explanation and I might have missed if I didn't write books myself now. I don't much care about it because I like the roller coaster ride of fucked-up-ed-ness, but a hole nontheless. Kinda big too and I'm DYING to ask him about it.
Ya think Dean would have lunch with me so we might discuss this hole? I'm almost done with the book and still, no explanation. Can you see my agent calling his? Dakota Cassidy, small time e-book writer, erotic in nature, smart ass personified, has a BIG question for you, Dean. Ya up for some turkey clubs and a chat by her leaky pool? LOLLOL.
Dean is one of my favorite things. I think after yesterday he's more of a favorite than even the VS Xmas catalogue.
That alone, speaks VOLUMES :)
Dakota :)
2 Comments:
At 5:14 AM,
Anonymous said…
I think you should definitely use the power of the internet, introduce yourself as a gushing fan, and ask the plot question....
If he missed it, AND his editor missed it.....he will probably appreciate the heads up.
Who knows? He may be in Texas soon on book tour and you can do lunch.
P
At 1:02 PM,
Dakota Cassidy said…
P? yeah, I'll just e-mail Dean and tell him he'd daggone better fix the five bazillion copies he sold right away. LOLLOL
Mr. Hick--you too :)
Paige, darling, gorgeous--no, I haven't. I've missed so many as of late, I MUST get back in the swing of picking some up :) I'll look for that one fer sure :)
Dakota :)
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