My Hyper-Caffeinated Mind

I may be near the end of my book reviewing rope. 

Seriously.

Not quite yet, but soon. I'd say I've got a year or two left, and then depending on where my writing career is headed, I may say buh-bye to the whole reviewing gig.  In fact, if I hadn't found a home writing reviews for Shroud Magazine, I probably would've tossed it already.

Why?

I'm pretty tired.  That's a lot of forced, read-by-deadline reading, and I've been doing it now for about four years, come this Spring.  Started at a little community newspaper here in the area, then graduated to Title Trakk.com and the now defunct Infuze.com. That lasted for about two years.  Then, I landed the job at our city newspaper, The Press & Sun Bulletin - ushered into the world of freelance pay for the very first time.

I enjoyed that gig.  As awesome as the Title Trakk folks were, (gotta love the Darlingtons), reading and reviewing for the Press allowed me more control over the things I read.  Then, of course, in the midst of a growing relationship with Shroud, I eventually left the Press to review exclusively for Shroud, and that's been the best gig so far - reviewing entirely within the genre I love and write. AND, me not reviewing anymore would have nothing to do with Shroud.  I just don't know how much "reviewing" gas I have left.

For one, I'm busier with fiction, and that's a good thing.  I've always had this latent, hidden fear that I'd only ever been known for reviews, and that's it.  For another...honestly......

I sometimes wonder what more there is to say.

I'm not a slammer of books.  Quite frankly, if I read a book and it's bad...I won't finish it or review it. There's no point.  If I rip the book, it makes me look like a jerk, it doesn't help the author, and - most importantly - it doesn't help readers, telling them about bad books they shouldn't read.  Of course, I don't want to be "glad-handing" books all the time, because that lacks credibility.

So.  Sometimes I feel pumped to write a review.  The book was fantastic, and because it was full of substance and style, I have lots to say.  The review is literally written in my head, and it takes minutes to write. Sometimes, though...the book wasn't noticeably bad, written well enough...but I just have no idea what to say about it that I haven't already said hundreds of times before.

Reviewing burnout?  Maybe.  Plus, I've definitely gotten to the place where I feel my reading should serve two purposes and two purposes only:

1. My stinkin', ever-lovin' pleasure

2. to enhance my own writing

Luckily, I receive plenty of good books from great publishers and authors - both small and large press - so #1 still gets served pretty well.  But even then, I feel that for me to last for even two more years, I'm going to need to scale back my schedule, because the things I want to read for #2....

- Hemingway

- Bradbury

- Faulkner

- O'Connor

- Yeats, Keats, and many others

- Shakespeare 

- Gaiman  (not his current stuff)

- classic Keene, King, Braunbeck, and Koontz

- and ANYTHING that Brian Keene mentions in his new Shroud column, Seminal Screams

...well, these things aren't the sort of things you can review.  Plus, this stuff needs to be slowly chewed and DIGESTED, man....not ripped through for a column.

So.  The time is coming when I'll stop reviewing.  I still say within two years, because I love working for Tim Deal, I love Shroud, and dammit - I love seeing my name on that cover. And, here's the thing - Tim is so awesome to work for, I could drop down to one review an issue, and he'd still run it.  So who knows.  Maybe five years from now, I'll still be reviewing for Shroud (which would be awesome, really).  I'll just have to say "No." to a lot more people in regards to reviewing books.

Hmmm.  No.  It's a pretty powerful word.

Anyway.  Reviews aren't going anywhere for now. 

Oh. By the way.

I met Brian Keene at Horrorfind.  I was going to do a special entry about this by itself, but I decided not to.  Didn't want to descend into fan-boyish gibbering.  I will say this bit:

It was awesome.  He's such a great guy, and here's the thing: he cares about new writers. Really.  Listening to him talk about the HWA (Horror Writers Association) and his theories about what he'd do if he were HWA president, (which were genius, BTW....just pure common sense), and listening him talk about the industry in general was inspiring.  And, I'm not wallowing in star worship, here.  Brian was helpful.  His talk was informative. And, as Kelli Dunlap kept trying to remind me, behind it all...he's just Brian.

It was very cool. AND, he seemed to already know me (which is no big deal; we both write for Shroud now) but was very humbling, also.  I'm hoping the next time we run into each other, I'll be relaxed enough to just say, "Hey, Brian..." and ask him how things are going.

Still.  Allow me to wax poetic about the moment, if you will.  In his blog memoirs, (which you all should really try to find and read), he called a segment of his creative personality the "Magus" - his muse, if you will.  There was a moment, Friday night at Horrorfind, when I found myself in the presence of the Magus. 

Several of us were smoking cigars, so a glimmering, moonlit mist had settled around us (ergo, cigar smoke).  It was midnight, and we were hanging out in the parking lot (while Mike Lombardo and I choked down the worst cough-syrup drinks ever).  Brian talked about the industry, about its ups and downs, and US - the new generation of writers.  It was a bit surreal, but I wasn't swooning.  I just listened, soaked it all up...and came away better for it.

And that's all.

Very, very cool.