August Better Be Better Than July.

[leene_chan]

I swear I say that every year!

July is the worst month weatherwise. The heat...the storms...Once August rolls around we can expect to see a few nights in the 50s...I hope.

I'm a couple of pages into Chapter Five of my novel. My Beta Reader handed me back Chapter Four with very few corrections. Considering how much revising I had to do on Chapter Three, I think this is a good sign that I'm starting to learn my lessons.

Lesson Number One: Do not make your heroine a total bitch for the first part of the story with the promise that her trials will improve her disposition. This only works for short stories. If you try it with a novel, by the end your readers will prefer to see her dead, not redeemed (I guess this might work for a secondary character, though).

Lesson Number Two: If you have something to say, just go out and say it.

Lesson Number Three: Eventually, you have to fill your room with some furniture.

My plants have been doing all right lately, but they're maddeningly slow to bloom. The poppies still appear to have no intention of doing anything more than growing multiple sets of lovely, fern-like leaves. I wonder if the fertilizer in the potting soil is to blame. I read somewhere that if you fertilize poppies at all they'll grow lots of leaves and no flowers. Damn it...I'm never growing poppies again.

I promised myself that if I get some blue bachelor's buttons I'm definitely doing them again next year. I love blue flowers more than anything.

On the book front, I've been slowly reading a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that I found lying around the house. I have no idea where it came from. The book itself is perfectly readable, but like all 19th century literature I can only consume it in small doses. One can only take so much gnashing of the teeth and melodrama....:D The story isn't quite what I expected. I wonder if the popular depiction of Frankenstein (the mad scientist throwing the switch and crying, "It's aliiiiive!") is based off the movies rather than the original book?

How many 19th century novels consist mostly of a narrator telling the story of the main character to another character? A lot, I think.

On the gaming front, I've been playing the little PSP gem known as Ys Seven. The game is surprisingly fun considering how lousy the previous installment was. This time around Falcom wasn't as bullish about reusing old series tropes (the red-haired hero goes on a solitary adventure, many cute girls fall in love with him, he ditches them all in the end). You actually get to control a party, a'la Secret of Mana. Dogi kind of runs like he has a load in his pants (oh God, I wasn't going to say that, but I couldn't help myself) but it's fun to beat on the enemies with someone other than Adol. The play control is actually pretty good, too. Not like the old games, where you just run into the enemy with your sword drawn!