Candice Hughes

This summer has gone by at light speed. The past couple months have included frenzied activity editing and polishing novel 2. This week, I released novel 2, hoping that it is ready to take flight. Waiting to see how reviewers will react is always a nail biting moment.

In between bouts of  motherly concern for novel 2, I’ll take some time to decompress from the intense activity. Maybe even take some walks and start thinking about what a novel 3 might look like. I love this time. It’s a time of free fall when almost anything can happen. A time when there are many doors waiting to be opened and it’s so hard to decide which door should be opened because everything is interesting, fresh and exciting.

The end of summer is a perfect time for free fall. Life starts gathering inward to protect itself from the snow and ice of winter. But winter hasn’t come yet. For now, I can still walk outside without a coat and sit on my porch to read. But the days are numbered. That’s alright though because every ending is a beginning.

Bookmarked: Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith and The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross

The memory of the writer’s conferences I attended this summer is being keep alive and well by the large (behemoth, really) stack of books that now rests on my dining room table due to lack of other suitable home.

If I were able to read as quickly as Katherine Neville, who at ThrillerFest said she could finish a novel in a couple of hours, I would have chewed through the stacks quickly. Sadly, let’s just say when it comes to reading I am “differently talented” than Ms. Neville. I have a secret though. My husband does in fact read a novel in hours and knows what sorts of books I like. So (I’m sure you can see where this is headed…) I cheat by letting him pre-screen all the books for me. I prefer to think of this as efficient and effective time use.

Let me tell you about one book we both enjoyed., Dark Time, Mortal Path by Dakota Banks. First, I should say we read an advance review copy so I don’t know if it’s for sale yet. Getting these copies is a GREAT perk of attending the conferences! Mortal Path is about a human forced to work for a demon. (I love demons so much, I have one in my book too so that was an instant connection!) The pacing in this book is spot on. I definetly wanted to keep turning pages. The female protagonist is a kick butt type of gal, which is another big plus for me as a reader. Finally, the book ends on an absolute cliffhanger. The book is marked as number one in a series so the ending did it’s job of making me want to look for the next book. Which makes me wonder at advice I received somewhere that writers should never end their novels on a cliffhanger. Well, the cliffhanger ending worked for me in this book so I’m wondering now about the advice. If you enjoy paranormal/fantasy thrillers, you may want to look for a copy of Mortal Path Book 1.

Bookmarked: Watchman by Ian Rankin

Almost without my noticing, we’ve slipped into the final haze of summer.  August saps motivation. Still, I believe we need August. August is the month when the world slips into a torpor.  Only the insects make sounds, repetitive chirring sounds that mix with the heat and sun. When the air starts turning colder, we wake up refreshed and ready to go.

Of course, if you live in Southern California, you can dismiss all this as ranting New England blather. Seasons are part of what I love about New England. Seasons mark off the passing of time. And it’s hard without seasons to pay attention to something you’d rather ignore, like time. Unless you’re under the age of twenty when time goes too slowly.

Today I’ll sit back in my chair with a cold ice tea, a cloudless blue sky, and crack open a book.  Ah, and it occurred to me that in my conference frenzy I’d stopped listing my reading books. So today I added back “Bookmarked.”

When I’m done reading, it’s back to writing.  What else is there for a writer to do?