A Break-neck pace...

I'm writing this first thing after waking, so the quality may be sketchy.  But then again, they're supposed to replace sketchy Facebook status updates, so maybe that'll work.  We'll see...

I'm reading Totentanz, by Al Sarrantonio; a pretty standard horror novel about an evil carnival come to a small country town, and all the souls it's thirsting after.  As usual, these souls - townspeople - have gaping holes inside themselves, weaknesses ALA 'Salem's Lot, that this carnival is hoping to take advantage of.

So here's the thing: I started it yesterday, and rocketed to page 113...all in one day.

Now, granted.  I don't have much of a "life", I'm a reading freak as it is, and every spare moment I have when I'm  not doing something or playing with the kids, I'm reading.  But still.  Gotta figure the author is doing SOMETHING right when you blast through 113 pages in one day.  And it's not like Sarrantonio writes childish, trite prose.  

But it's smooth.  Balanced. Flows very well.  And whatever he's done with this story, the suspense and pacing are perfect, don't let up for a second...even with several flashbacks folded in.  

I want to do that.

I want my stories to do that.   I want the prose so smooth it flows like melted butter, and I want a story that doesn't let up, ever.  As a reader, I appreciate lush novels that take a while to read - just finished one, Riders of the Purple Sage.  Description was so vivid and detailed, it demanded me to take my time, soak up every precious word.

As a writer, though?

I want my prose to be solid.  Maybe even "artistic".   I want to write meaningful stories with substance.

But, geez.  I want my stories to move, baby.  Because that's what keeps folks comin' back for more....

Okay.  Breakfast and Black & Orange by Benjamin Kane Ethridge, then down to the Bat Cave to do my thing....