And then this big earthquake happened....

[M.G. Tarquini]

While waiting for edits from my most excellent agent, I've been ordered to read, look at art, go to mass, whatever it takes to refill my wells of creativity. So, I've been listening to oratorios, hanging out at the art museum, wandering the botanical gardens, right?

No. Mostly, I've been shampooing carpets, cleaning out cabinets and, in general, doing domestic stuff that's been on hold for the last year or so that I've been working toward the point when somebody would order me to go read, look at art, go to mass and do whatever it takes to refill my wells of creativity.

However, I am managing some reading. Most of what I've been doing is picking stuff up, reading 50 pages and tossing it aside.

How come?

Nothing happens. A lot of it is really well written. Gorgeous prose. The kind of thing I aspire to. But nothing happens. I keep turning the page expecting, hoping, begging the universe that the next sentence will be one or all of the following:

And then the building exploded.
And then a guy in a red coat took over the world.
And then this big landslide took out the last warehouse holding food.
And then all the corn in the land was afflicted by a deadly blight.
And then the dog died.
Her cake fell.
She ran out of shampoo.

Anything. I don't care. Just to have SOMETHING happen. The thing that I know from which point the story will turn, the protag will learn something, the world will be ripe for alien invasion.

Call me old-fashioned. Or maybe just old. Used to be, I loved reading introspective things that went on and on while the protag slowly came to realize some fuzzy ideal. I admit it. I've grown shallow, embarrassingly so.

Now bring on the murder, mayhem, bank robberies, train wrecks and nuclear holocausts, or even a really good kitchen disaster. I'm easy. Write what you want, just make sure something happens.

[M.G. Tarquini]

Thanks, Amra! I'm always looking. I just read a firecracker, The Electric Church, by Jeff Somers. There's some comments about it on my blog. I toted it along with me and read it every time I had a few minutes.